A Midsummer Night's Dream
by Seitora
Summary: Yahiko survives and wins the civil war against Hanzo. As the new leader of Ame, he seeks a new path to peace. Through sabotage and destruction, the shinobi world will be annihilated. No Madara, Dark!Naruto, realistic ruthless militaristic Sandaime/Konoha
1. Measure for Measure

**With Yahiko surviving the fight with Hanzo, things happen very differently once the wonder trio take over Ame. As Yahiko becomes the new leader of Ame, he begins to wonder about his childhood declaration of wanting to be on the top of the world. No Madara, Dark!Naruto**

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**Chapter One - 'Measure for Measure'**

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**Due to the fanfiction site screwing up, there may be some chapters that are missing dividers. My apologies for the inconvenience, and I will try to fix it as soon as possible.  
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An orange-haired tall man with bright blue eyes walked through the hallway in a trance, setting aside his thoughts over recently acquired intel on the location of an otter summoning contract in Kiri for the time being. Opening the door showed the light streaming in from outside, as he walked out the mouth of the head of a statue, built up high on Ame's neo-techno landscape. Walking down to the end of the outstretched tongue of the monstrous sculpture, he sat down, and thought, head lying on his hands, even as the rain Ame was named for began to fall.

_Things will definitely come to a head soon_, he thought, as he surveyed his beloved Ame. For years, decades now he had worked tirelessly from behind the shadows to organize an international network of saboteurs and spies, and it was beginning to finally pay off. The instant that the brotherhood of Akatsuki was outed, he had no doubts that war would be coming to Ame, his Ame, once more, as the rest of the shinobi world wouldn't hesitate to band together and eliminate a threat to their very existence. This time, however, this would be the last war. Even now, one of his most loyal agents, and one of his most competent, if a bit too addicted to the taste of revenge, was setting up a meeting in the hidden village where things would come to a head in eight months. All Yahiko had to do was wait it out another eight months, and the process of things would finally begin to accelerate.

Yes, Yahiko chuckled, once the Chunin Exams finished, the great weakening of the hidden villages would come about, as the Akatsuki would transit into the second phase of his three-phase plan. Every day that they could stave off discovery of their schemes was another day that the chances of ending the bloodshed and cycle of hate for once and for all would increase, if ever so slightly. If not for the fact that he now hated Jiraiya, and that the old Gama Sennin was too loyal to Konoha, whose existence ran counterpoint to what Yahiko had planned, he would have made his old sensei proud.

Shuffling his body back a bit, Yahiko lied down, letting the raindrops splash over him, wetting his hair down. He thought about his life over the last few decades.

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How does one go about actually achieving peace? Yahiko of Ame, formerly an orphan on one of Ame's satellite villages, and now it's leader, had once declared that he was going to rule the world, with his motivation for doing so being that he could enforce a peace as a result. That had been a midsummer night when he made it his goal, yet now it had faded into the background for something else. Yahiko had never told his childhood friends and fellow stragglers Nagato and Konan, but he had witnessed his parents being killed by Hanzo's dogs at the age of seven. They were shinobi both, but they had been caught up in a rebellion against the feared salamander summoner. Yahiko had barely managed to escape, and had slipped through the cracks of the dystopian society as an orphan. Although he had matured as he grew up in temperance, he still possessed that same burning desire to be on top. But to first rule the world, one would have to take over the world.

However, years of fighting as the leader of a rebellion against Hanzo had tempered him, and he was no longer ignorant to the true sacrifices and horrors of war. If he wanted to take over the world, he would have to go through years of war, taking over hidden village one by one, breaking the will of tens of thousands to ensure they would not resist, and once he finally unified every vestige of shinobihood on the Elemental Nations, would have to keep them repressed to ensure they would not fight each other. That was just for the ninja villages alone, not counting the interference he would have from the daimyos and their samurai. More and more Yahiko began to realize this was an impractical solution, and so he began to look at other ways to bring about peace.

Yahiko's small council of governance, formed up of the last original members of his former band that had deposed Hanzo, came up with a solution. Instead of fighting directly against each Hidden Village, many of which dwarfed Ame's military capacity and would seek the slightest excuse to expand their circle of influence, they would have to fight and manipulate from the shadows. Instead of fighting and forcibly breaking the will of a Hidden Village, they would force the villages into a dearmament. How? The biggest thing was to cut off the financial lifeblood of every village. For this, Yahiko recruited the ancient bounty hunter/mercenary known as Kakuzu, formerly a jonin of Taki, whom was banished after failing to assassinate the Shodai Hokage.

Under Kakuzu, Yahiko organized a small handful of his best shinobi to strike out into the wild. The original story that was delivered to all the other nations (who were under the impression that Hanzo still ruled in Ame) that a small group of jonin had gone nuke-nin all at once. In reality, however, the jonin ninjas were to take on as many missions from savoury and unsavour characters alike in smaller nations that lacked a ninja village. People who might have once hired ninjas long distance from Konoha or Kumo now hired Ame's 'nuke-nins'. On completion of the mission, each mercenary would funnel some of the mission money back to Ame. To ensure that the money-grubby Kakuzu stayed on Yahiko's side, the orange-haired leader gave him a cut of each mission.

Kakuzu took a few apprentices on as well in Ame. Between his arrangement with Yahiko and having some new partners to assist on his bounty hunting, Kakuzu enjoyed a greater amount of bounty captures, but slowly began to focus on the heads of those targeted by the hidden villages, such as nuke-nins and civilians a village might hold a grudge against. While Konoha and Iwa managed to operate their military budgets in the billions of ryo each year, their coffers had declined with the succession of the Second and Third Great Shinobi Wars. Konoha's most infamous nuke-nin, Orochimaru of the Sannin, had a price of 500 million ryo for his head alone, and anywhere from another 30 to 75 million ryo for each abandoned base that a person could provide the Hokage with the location of.

But it wasn't enough. Yahiko could slowly drain the hidden villages of money as much as he wanted and as long as he wanted, but the money still wasn't enough. You could take away some of Konoha's missions, but as long as they still had legends like Jiraiya of the Sannin, Kakashi of the Sharingan, the Green Beast, ANBU Squads 7 and 12, and the up-and-coming Itachi Uchiha, many would still come from afar to Konoha. As long as each of the main villages had over three thousand shinobi each between their active and reserve forces, they could still take enough missions that Yahiko's plotting would only put a dent in their savings.

So not only would he take away their money, he would take away their manpower.

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Yahiko's friend Nagato was the most instrumental for a tenent of his 'denial-of-resources' war against the rest of the shinobi world. Nagato possessed the legendary Rinnegan, a doujutsu that had not been manifested in any one person since the time of the Rikudo Sennin. While most people knew about the ability of a Rinnegan wielder in being able to wield all six natures of chakra, little was known about its other powers. One particularly useful ability was its power over summons - any animal whose contract Nagato had signed would be forced to obey Nagato. The other facet of its abilities with summons was that Nagato had a sixth sense of the location of summoning contracts, and could locate any contract within a radius of three hundred kilometers.

Unlike what Yahiko, Nagato and Konan's sensei, Jiraiya of the Sannin believed, their meeting with the three Sannin was not the first time they saw Jiraiya. When Jiraiya and his teammates were fighting Salamander Hanzo, whose summon had created craters in the ground, and caused a nearby cliff to collapse, causing dust to scatter and choke the air and sunlight for days, even with the constant rain. The Sannins had summoned their boss summons earlier in the fight, wrecking the vegetation, knocking down the few trees that grew in the rainy conditions, and flooding the plains. After the battle was over, Yahiko surveyed the damage for a week. It was muddy and dirty, and nothing would grow in it. Ten years later, he came back. It was still as barren as the day he had last seen it.

Following that, Yahiko had gained an unnatural loathing for the use of summons in battles and war. A normal shinobi could cause quite a bit of destruction with their jutsus, but they were still human, beings who rarely exceeded six feet and seventy kilograms, and even most ninjutsus had little in the way of an attack range. The larger summons were perverse contrasts - they would destroy and destroy and destroy in their fighting, whether against another summon or against groups of shinobi (or in some cases, such as Manda, to even go so far as to devour innocents). As a result, Yahiko made the stealing (and destruction in a few rare cases, again such as the snake contract if he ever got his hands on it) of summoning contracts, or killing the lone holders of these contracts, a top priority - if his sensei Jiraiya lost the ability to hop around with a giant toad, covering hundreds of miles in only a few hours, while leaving giant imprints of toad pads in the ground, who was Yahiko to care?

Additionally, Nagato was a machine at infiltration and spying. The Rinnegan also gave Nagato an inhuman amount of chakra, and with this he was capable of great feats, such as maintaining six clones full-time. While the clones, being a bastardized form of Nagato's **Sh****ōten no Jutsu** that he had made from yin/yang chakra, were mediocre in strength and prowess, Nagato could maintain all six clones at once, while himself concentrating on a different task. He had a clone keeping track of day-to-day happenstance in Kiri, Kumo, Iwa, Konoha, Taki and Kusa, with the identity that each clone possessed slowly but surely wriggling its way into the inner core of the power structure of each village. It was a boon, to be sure. With his instant perception of events happening in six different nations, Nagato was able to plant information he could find from one village in another village; in one instance, he had once leaked a mission with four Konoha jonins to an office in Iwa. A retired shinobi of high standing in Iwa couldn't pass up the temptation, and had sent out an ambush against the Konoha jonins, successfully killing them all. To be sure, this was still slow going for Yahiko's plans, but every shinobi dead or crippled was a shinobi who couldn't perform missions. Once a village's number of shinobi dropped, they would have an excess of missions, and therefore be less tempted to go to war - a shinobi war was fought not for territory (that was the field of the daimyos) but for area of influence. In the Third Great Shinobi War, Taki (who was on Konoha's side, and therefore part of the victor against Iwa) managed to make headway with client contracts into the borders of the Land of Stone, while both Suna and Konoha began to take missions in Bird Country away from Iwa.

Still, Nagato used this ability of his to his maximum success. In each of the six villages he had set up a brotherhood of like-minded people, men and women who sought the end of war, going so far as to accept that it wasn't their own village that had the divine mandate to come out of the arrangements on top. It was they who would do the grunt work for weakening their respective villages. The Akatsuki, that was what the brotherhoods became known as. _Red Dawn_. It was fitting, Yahiko had often mused. They would bring about a new dawn, fueled by the sacrifice of blood red.

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Eventually, Yahiko realized there was one weapon he had overlooked - jinchuuriki. Eight tailed beasts were possessed by five Hidden Villages.

There would be problems. How could he get rid of the jinchuuriki, when the bijuu were an even bigger threat to all of man? He couldn't very well kill a jinchuuriki if he or she let their bijuu free in the process. Digging through old scrolls left behind in Hanzo's personal library, he began to research the background of the bijuu. They were nine oni spirits from the realm of Makai who had broken the dimensional barrier and crossed over into ningenkai. From there, they managed to accumulate a chakra shell around their spirits as a form of a body. Eventually, they gathered together so much power that they could manifest physical bodies for short periods of time (as theorised by many scholars based on an old law where a large amount of energy could be converted into a small amount of mass), and it was reported that a few of the middle beasts of the hierachy often walked amongst humans.

Studying, he found that the chakra that each bijuu gathered around them wasn't elemental, but rather yin/yang chakra, a chakra that few scholars knew much about. What little Yahiko found was that yin/yang chakra was related to both nature chakra and the elementally neutral normal chakra people used for most jutsus, but was in a class of its own. Yin/yang was perhaps the most dangerous chakra of all, as the Yin side began to corrupt whatever consciousness the bijuu had, and any inbalance in the chakra was especially dangerous, becoming what many scholars had termed as yokai.

It was, however, possible to purify the chakra of the bijuu. In fact, Yahiko began to wonder if the deities above had intended for what he had planned to happen - how else would his closest friend have been Nagato, who again was useful in his exploits, the Rinnegan being the only known tool that could control yin/yang chakra? With experimentation, Nagato would probably be able to neutralize most of the lower bijuu, and greatly weaken most of the upper end. Few people knew it, but there wasn't that much of a power gap between the Ichibi and the Kyuubi - people think that the tails are the only indicators of a bijuu's power. In reality, that isn't quite true. To be considered a bijuu, an oni spirit must first have enough chakra to be able to form a chakra body of a certain size, and then enough chakra remaining over that they could form a chakra tail. In that sense, the Kyuubi merely held nine times the reserve chakra of the Ichibi, while their base forms had about the same amount of chakra (although not exact - the Nibi no Nekomata, being the smallest of the bijuu and barely crossing the size threshold to be considered a bijuu, was actually weaker than the Ichibi no Tanuki, whose base form dwarfed the Nibi's). As such, Yahiko was confident that if they could grab a lower-class bijuu to work on, their results should carry over to the sealed Rokubi, Nanabi, and Hachibi.

But that still begged the problem of how they would secure each bijuu and jinchuuriki. Three jinchuuriki were in high-profile positions - Yagura, the Sanbi vessel, was being trained for the position of Mizukage in Kirigakure, Han, the Gobi vessel, was the son of the current Tsuchikage, and Kirabi was the brother to the Raikage-select. They would have to be the last on the list to do anything with. In fact, the only vessel who wasn't actively affiliated with a village was the Yonbi host, who was a traveller who only assisted Iwa when they called on him.

And even when he crossed that road, how exactly could he prevent the bijuus from becoming corrupted again? He could kidnap all the jinchuuriki and seal the oni spirits into new vessels every time their old ones died, but that would become a headache, trying to keep that much power restrained. Even sealing the lower demons into inanimate objects would only work as a temporary solution.

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In his search high and low throughout the Elemental Nations, Yahiko found one man who took completely after his own heart - Akasuna no Sasori. When he first met the red-head in Suna, the puppeteer was a rising star in the desert village, at the strapping age of fifteen. Sasori had lost both his parents in the Second Great Shinobi War to Hatake Sakumo; what enraged him was how only a few years later the political landscape had changed, and Suna had made an alliance with Konoha. How could the Sandaime Kazekage so easily ally with their once-enemy?

The last straw came for Sasori when he learned of the Kazekage's plans to kill Awai Tsubu, the second Ichibi jinchuuriki. The Kazekage would then seal the Ichibi while it was still weak from being released into a newborn child. It was one thing for the Kazekage to kill Tsubu, who was Sasori's friend - while Sasori wouldn't allow it if possible, he understood on an intrinsic level that it was a necessary cycle of things. However, what truly galled Sasori was that the Sandaime planned to use a weak seal on the newborn - the seal would allow the Ichibi to drive the child mad, and when the child fell asleep, the Ichibi no Tanuki could take over and cause havoc. The Kazekage would do this to a child just so he could have a weapon of war.

Sasori originally planned to defect. However, Yahiko convinced him otherwise, noting that he was allowing things to go as they were. Heartened by Yahiko's words, Sasori challenged the Sandaime to a duel of honor, eventually killing the Sandaime in battle, and becoming the Yondaime Kazekage in his stead. Alas, the damage had been partially done, as by then the Sandaime had had Tsubu killed, and the Ichibi temporarily stored in a tea pot.

So enraged he was when he learned this fact, Sasori had called in Yahiko. Under Jiraiya, the three Ame comrades had each learned from one of his fields. Nagato had learned ninjutsu. Konan had managed to combine taijutsu with a bastardized version of natural chakra to become an adept at wielding paper, even being able to turn her own body into the stuff. Yahiko, however, had learned fuinjutsu under the Gama Sennin. It was with his knowledge of seals, and Sasori's own indepth talent coming from years of puppetry, the two released the Ichibi into a specialized field built to slowly drain the Tanuki oni's yokai - it wouldn't take away the oni spirit's yokai permanently, but it was an effective method of torture. It was there that they discovered the spirit of the priest Shukaku, who had connected his soul to the tanuki's own years before, driving the spirit of the wind insane.

In the course of over fourty-eight sleepless hours, the two, along with Nagato, managed to extract the spirit of the priest from the Ichibi. While the Tanuki Oni was at the weakest he had ever been since he had crossed over into ningenkai, with his yokai being drained from him and having a part of his soul ripped away, Yahiko bombarded the oni with questions. He learned that while in a vessel, all demons had their yokai siphoned off by their hosts, but the process was far too slow to put even a dent in the bijuu's reserves. However, if a bijuu ever had all its yokai totally drained, then it could be exorcised and properly sent back to Makai, though they would still have the power to cross dimensions again.

Hanzo's private library came into use again, as Yahiko managed to find some ancient sealing research. Specifically, he found a series of seals that dealt with absorbing nature chakra to convert into electricity or heat, as opposed to the towns and cities of today having small groups of people whose job was to refuel power sources with their own chakra. Yahiko could only find parts of the seals that could convert nature chakra; nevertheless, between him and Sasori, they were able to complete the seal, then modify it for the use of yin/yang chakra and yokai, so as to drain a sealed bijuu's vessel and add it onto the vessel's own chakra pool, and modify it again so it could be put on top of a demon seal instead of being required to be put in with the original seal, as well as being invisible after it was applied, even when the vessel was moulding chakra. It was around this time that Yahiko finally managed to bring Roshi of Iwa into the fold of his organization. Roshi and the Yonbi agreed to be test subjects for the seal.

There were some surprising side effects even when Roshi had only absorbed 10% of the Yonbi's yokai. For one, Roshi, who was in his late thirties, had begun to seemingly regress in age, and his healing factor had also gone up. The Yonbi suggested that Roshi would be long-lived, perhaps living in excess of a thousand years, as his chakra would regenerate his cells instead of dividing and shortening the telomeres. It was then that Yahiko decided that each jinchuuriki would have to be convinced of his plans. Once all eight vessels (or vessels to be) had undergone the same process, then they would have the power and the lifespan to safeguard the peace for centuries to come.

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After that, Yahiko retreated back to Ame, while Sasori built up Sunagakure's own power, slowly so as not to attract attention. The two watched as clashes between Iwa and Konoha brought about the Third Great Shinobi War. While Yahiko was able to keep Ame out of it, Suna was expected to engage in the war. Sasori went straight into the thick of battle, slaughtering hundreds of Iwa shinobi. Both were impressed at the debut of the legend of Namikaze Minato, the _Konoha no Kiiroi Senk__ō_, in the war, with his use of his legendary **Hiraishin no Jutsu**. While they had devised a seal that could suck the energy out of demons, he had created what appeared to be a bastardized version of a summoning seal that effectively allowed him to teleport throughout the battlefield. This worried Yahiko - Minato, in only a few years of jutsu development, had probably become stronger than him, Nagato, and Sasori, all three powerful in their own rights. In only a few more years, Minato could probably defeat the three of them all at once.

Shortly after the war, the Ichibi was finally sealed into a vessel, a redhead named Gaara, who was the newborn son of a capable high-level Jonin, one who might have become the Yondaime Kazekage if not for Sasori's own legend. It was after the ceremony that Yahiko had begun to worry - while he had tied together many loose ends, two things could disrupt his plan still - the first was that of Namikaze Minato. The man was becoming so powerful and legendary that he could destroy all of Yahiko's scheming. The second was that of the Kyuubi no Kitsune - although it had not been seen on the mortal realm for eighty years, it might come back at any time, and Yahiko was unsure if it could even be sealed. While peace was all very well for the world, it would not do if the king of all bijuu destroyed it beforehand.

It was amazing how things seemed to click together, as if indeed the kamis were indeed looking down on Yahiko. Only nine months after Sasori had sealed the Ichibi no Tanuki into Gaara, the Kyuubi no Kitsune appeared on Konoha's doorstop, and Namikaze Minato sacrificed himself to seal the Kyuubi into a newborn child. Even better, the power behind the seal was assured, as intel from Konoha had suggested that Minato had summoned the Shinigami to seal away the fox, a deed for which Yahiko had to admit he admired the blond man who had a similar appearance to his own.

Over a thousand shinobi died in the battle, however, and Sasori took the chance to finally flaunt Suna's muscle, as he immediately went into mediation between Leaf, Stone and Cloud. The recognized ninja of the Red Sands convinced the Raikage and Tsuchikage that they would be able to reap enough of an upfall simply from the extra missions they would get that Konoha could no longer perform, and that to press war could cause fractures to occur in the semi-stable system of the Five Great Hidden Villages that had worked for sixty years so far. Yahiko often was amazed at how the Kyuubi attack managed to solve things for him - he had originally estimated that it would take twenty years for his plotting to come to fruition. After the end of two decades, the manpower of the hidden villages would finally fall at an accelerated pace, in comparison to the snail's pace for the years preceding that. With Konoha losing a thousand men at this point in time, as well as their Yondaime Hokage, the tensions between nations saw a downward pressure, giving Yahiko a bit more wiggle room to operate.

But what shocked him was the news that came back from Konoha, as he learned of the utter malice that was directed at the Kyuubi vessel. In retrospect, it didn't surprise him - in every other nation, the eight tailed beasts numbering from one to eight had been presented to them by the Shodai Hokage, practically gift-wrapped (Yahiko shook his fist at the clouds every time he thought of the man, damning him for giving the hidden villages what accounted to forces of nature). While normal civilians and ninjas might fear their jinchuuriki, they had no real cause to hate them - no bijuu had ever killed their parents, crippled their siblings, caused their wives or daughters to miscarry because of the sheer killing intent. But the Kyuubi had attacked Konoha and slaughtered over a fifth of their shinobi forces, wiping out part of an entire generation.

The only good thing that came out of it was that three of Yahiko's agents were able to infiltrate Konoha so easily and kidnap Naruto at the age of five, taking him to Ame, while leaving behind a seventh Nagato clone. In Ame, Yahiko was in for the shock of a lifetime.

When it comes to high-level seals, every master of seals has their own little quirk, their own little trademark, so that one seal master could recognize another seal master's work just by identifying little intricacies of a seal. For example, Namikaze Minato had a thing for spirals. The blue-eyed carrot-head wasn't quite at that level yet, but he could easily identify his own sensei's work. What enraged him was that he discovered two seals on the back of Naruto's head, covered up by the young boy's blonde hair, that were both done by his sensei Jiraiya. The first seal was a suppression seal - it would cut down the intensity of a person's emotions, doubtlessly done so that young Naruto wouldn't feel rage and hatred at the village that had been mistreating him, and possibly let loose part of the Kyuubi yokai in the process. The problem with the seal was that it slowed down the target's neuron impulses, which would make it harder for Naruto to think and understand concepts, slow down his reaction time, and screw up his body coordination. Yahiko wasted no time in taking that one out.

Where the suppression seal angered the leader of Ame, the second seal absolutely infuriated him. It was a seal that, when activated, would cause hypersensitive perception for a few minutes. Most ninjas couldn't use it because it caused too much strain on the body, but even with the suppression seal on his body, Yahiko guessed that Naruto was able to stand it because of the Kyuubi. Yahiko had a fairly good idea of what the seal was used for - while in the hypersensitive state, a person was more receptive to anything that was said. Yahiko's blood boiled as he could imagine what had happened - Naruto at the age of two, three, four, having his seal activated, while the Sandaime stood over him, uttering words such as, _"Be loyal to Konoha and your Hokage no matter what"_, "_Put your teammates before yourself"_, _"Never raise a hand against the civilians_", _"Believe in the Will of Fire"_.

The second seal was easily destroyed as well, but Yahiko had to keep Naruto in Ame as a result to get rid of the brainwashing. The young Naruto was torn - he realized what had been done to him and felt betrayed by Konoha and the Sandaime, who he had viewed as a grandfather figure, as well as being enraged at the citizens and shinobi who took out their losses on him ("They live in a military village, and they suddenly can't accept that that means friends and relatives might die?") yet still had a difficult time resisting the mental programming that the second seal was left behind. So several of Ame's psychologists had to work with Naruto for a bit under a year.

What was disturbing was when Nagato had brought himself Naruto into the sun-haired boy's mindscape. Bypassing the Kyuubi, deciding to talk with the kitsune later on, Nagato instead wanted to look at Naruto's earliest memories, those during and right after the sealing. Naruto wouldn't be able to remember these memories until he went through intense meditation, but Nagato had a pair of eyes that were said to be a fault in a god's plan, and had become mentally strong enough years ago on the level of Konoha's Yamanaka clan to search through another's mindscape. From there, he looked through the council proceedings that had occurred right after the Kyuubi attack was stopped, which Naruto had been present at even as a newborn, hoping to find information that could be used for their own goals.

But right after that was a meeting between Sarutobi Hiruzen and Jiraiya in the Sandaime's private office. It was there that Nagato learned Naruto was the Yondaime's son, and Jiraiya's godson, and it was there that Jiraiya applied the two seals to the back of Naruto's cranium, quite willingly. Nagato and Yahiko debated over giving Naruto this information, and decided to wait until after they were sure the psychologists had managed to help Naruto out of his brainwashing.

Needless to say, Naruto was greatly distressed. His grandfather had betrayed him, and his godfather basically sabotaged his body before ditching his duties, despite that he was the Yondaime's son. He wasn't even willing to think about what might have happened if he had just been a random orphan off the streets who the Yondaime chose to contain the Kyuubi. Yahiko for his own part was upset - when Jiraiya had been teaching him, he had often preached about peace, trying to end the cycle of hatred, and so forth, and yet, he would do something like this to his godson? Yahiko wasn't arrogant enough to think that he could cleanse the world of evil, or that he was a god, but after seeing the amount of abuse Naruto had gone through from the day that he was born, he swore to do his best to expunge corruption so that another like Naruto wouldn't happen, ever again.

Eventually, Naruto left Ame to go back to Konoha, as Nagato had overstressed himself in trying to maintain a seventh clone for over a year. Before Naruto left, however, Yahiko had personally trained Naruto thoroughly. While he couldn't offer any jutsus at the time, he taught Naruto how to think and act as a shinobi, and some methods on chakra control. Naruto and Nagato finally spoke with the Kyuubi, coming on their own terms to the conditions that the Kyuubi wanted in return for Naruto's draining of his yokai. As Naruto had replaced his doppelganger back in Konoha, Nagato's spy-clone inducted him into Konoha's brotherhood, and Naruto slowly rose through the ranks.

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Eight hundred kilometers away, at the same time that Yahiko was deep in his introspective, a humming sound filled a dark chamber deep underground. Only one person was there in the flesh, his eyes closed, but that was OK - he had the sheer amount of power that was required to hold the **Gent****ōshin no Jutsu** for hours on end. Seventeen holograms appeared in the room; although there was a slight colour to be had from the holograms, most of it outside of the hair and eyes were lost by a shadowy filter. None of the technical details mattered much to the wielder of the technique - at the moment, he was more concerned with his duties, acting as moderator and mastermind all at once.

Doing a double-check to make sure that all members were accounted for by sensing the number of chakra transitions, the young boy opened his eyes, revealing sparkling blue. When he spoke, his tone of voice was crisp and clear, yet tolerating no nonsense. "Let the meeting of the Konoha brotherhood begin..."

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**OK, a lot of the background for this story will be answered in the next chapter, but I'll list a bit of it here.**

**Yahiko fought through the Ame Civil War, and he's seen a lot of friends die in his quest to despose Hanzo, nearly dying himself. As such, he truly knows war, both from the outside and the inside, and the cost of it. His boyhood dream of becoming a god of the world has dwindled as a result of realizing the sacrifices he might have to make on the way.**

**As a result, he's playing it safe and going through it a different way. As opposed to outright war, Yahiko is trying to weaken the military power of all the hidden villages (besides Ame and Suna) through sabotage efforts and other such tactics. Denial of resources is his big thing - take away summoning contracts, and several shinobi lose a highly flexible weapon, and villages weapons of mass destruction during wars. Take away jinchuuriki, and you can't achieve sheer slaughter. Kill off thousands of ninjas, and nobody will go to war because a) they don't have enough manpower, b) what manpower they do have isn't enough to fulfill the missions they're contracting, and as long as they have plenty of missions, everyone's happy for the time being. During that 'time being', Yahiko will continue to exert force and pressure and continue weakening the hidden villages.  
**

**The bit on shinobi wars is just my thought - ninja villages aren't really built for administering territories. They're ninjas. So Shinobi Wars are fought for prestige and influence than for land.**

**Naruto's pairing is already decided so don't bother trying to flood the review box with "OMG NARU/HINA4LYFE!" :P You'll see what it is next chapter, but a small hint - it's an extremely rare pairing (I don't think it's even been done before) and the girl isn't actually even in the character selection form yet. There's a really small hint in this chapter as well, but I won't be surprised if nobody can see it. It's not really even a hint - more of an absence of something.**

**The only thing I'd like to hear thoughts on is how to deal with Kirigakure in this alternate universe. For those who've been keeping up with the manga, it's been revealed that Yagura, the Sanbi container, was the Yondaime Mizukage, the guy who had in place the 'Bloody Mist' policies, but the Godaime Mizukage thinks Yagura was being manipulated by somebody (Madara). I have a policy of subtly altering things in my work as new details come out in the manga, but if there isn't any Madara here, then should Yagura be by default a more benevolent Mizukage, or a guy who still has the same policies as in canon?**


	2. The Traitor

**Chapter Two - "The Traitor"**

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_"Let the meeting of the Konoha brotherhood begin..."_

As he spoke those words, the silhouettes of the people behind the holograms stiffened, standing up straight to pay attention to the man who had recently become the leader of Konoha's Akatsuki branch. He wore a black cloak with red clouds printed across it, the trademark uniform that the heads in Amegakure had come up with for when Akatsuki would wage open war in the future.

Naruto was quick and concise in his agenda for the meeting, and nodded off towards a silver-haired boy who wore glasses. "Please report your findings to the rest of us, Kabuto."

The Yakushi boy pushed up his glasses higher up on his nose in a habit he had yet to break. "Certainly, Naruto-kun." Despite the circumstances that the brotherhood came together through, they maintained a decent amount of comraderie between them. Very few secrets were kept here, and Naruto, despite being the leader here, was merely a 'first amongst many' in the brotherhood. "As most of you have known," he began, "for the last few years I have been double-crossing Konoha and serving under Orochimaru of the Sannin as his second-in-command, and triple-crossing Orochimaru and reporting his plans and schemes to the Akatsuki. You should all know by now that Orochimaru is the leader of the newly formed Otogakure no Sato." Making sure all of the other seventeen regulars were paying close attention, he went forward with the news that had brought them there that day. "In eight months time, Orochimaru plans to invade Konoha, during the Chunin Exam Finals."

That caught everybody's attention (except for Naruto, who knew what Kabuto was going to say beforehand), and a slight buzz occurred throughout the rooms as people talked to their hologram neighbours. Once the chatter died down, Kabuto continued his talk. "Orochimaru plans to bring Iwa along for the invasion, who will readily agree in their hatred of Konoha as a result of their loss in the Third Great Shinobi War." Taking a deep breath, he continued. "One of the pillars of Orochimaru's plan is to bring along Han Kuroi, grandson of the current Tsuchikage, who will show up pretending to be the Tsuchikage through means of a powerful Henge. When the invasion starts, Han will let loose his demon in the middle of the arena, while Orochimaru will cut off the Sandaime Hokage by blocking him in a barrier." Kabuto let the silence reign, but everyone could tell it was for dramatic effect, not to let them talk, and waited for him to continue. "Orochimaru has recently worked out most of the kinks on his **Edo Tensei** technique, and is planning to summon the Shodai, Nidaime and Yondaime Hokages during the battle."

Immediately pandemonium erupted. Despite that everyone there was loyal to a higher goal than Konoha (something which Nagato and later Naruto were rigorous in making sure of, using such methods as truth serums, searching through each recruit's minds, and using seals to prevent them from possibly blabbing about the Akatsuki), they still had respect for the Hokages, and the snake using a perverted kinjutsu to revive their dead spirit to destroy the village they had defended with their lives was a mockery of their names.

Finally, one of the ninja present, a blond man in his late twenties, fielded a question onto the floor. "Is Konoha aware at all of Orochimaru's and Iwa's plans to invade?"

To this, Naruto just sneered. "No, their spymaster is far too busy being a lecher to find out." Many of those present flinched - about half of those present already knew that Naruto was the son of the Yondaime, and that Jiraiya was supposed to be Naruto's godfather. That Jiraiya had ditched his duties was a disgrace. Hell, the man dropped in Konoha every half year, was known for his vices, had over six hundred million ryo in the bank as a result of his Icha Icha books, and couldn't be damned to spend any time or money on his godson? The only reason Naruto even had an apartment today was that he was classified as an orphan, and hence drew a mild stipend from the orphan's fund.

Satisfied at letting out a microscopic fraction of the pent-up anger that he had gathered towards a select number of individuals over the year, Naruto continued on. "However, Yahiko-sama has decided that Konoha needs to become aware of the snake's plans." At the mention of their orange-haired head leader, everyone once again started to pay attention - they had seen how Yahiko's plans had worked out over the last few years. The only reason Orochimaru was likely even planning on invading Konoha was for revenge against his former sensei, and Iwa probably figured they had a great chance at succeeding if they had the assistance of another Hidden Village in the process.

Another ninja, who looked to be in his early twenties, wearing a chunin vest, with dark brown hair that spiked down hiding his right eye, asked, "Are we to assist Konoha above the capacity they expect us to do in the positions we are in?" This man in particular was a gate guard, whose emergency period measures would be to close the gate and lock it down. In reality, he had jonin-level strength, and was used to ferret information that various officials would let loose from their lips whenever he worked at the Hokage's office as a gofer.

Naruto shook his head. "For the most part, you should stand down from any extra duties. Sound has few ninja of any talent, and so Orochimaru is likely planning on using them as fodder. It is the Iwa nin that I am more worried about, as they are still great in numbers, and most will be of decent talent. Konoha will have the home advantage but Iwa has no qualms about using jutsus that cause property damage. All three villages will be weakened quickly. However," Here, Naruto clenched his fists tightly, "The Sandaime Hokage must not die. We will try our best to intercept Orochimaru and weaken him before the fight so that the Sandaime can injure or kill him, preferably the latter. If the Sandaime dies, the council will more than likely strangle as much power away as they can before a Godaime Hokage is appointed, and will probably end up provoking a war very quickly. If the Sandaime is alive, he will more likely than not call in one of the Sannin to become the Godaime. However, Konoha will still be too weakened to wage war against Iwa, and Iwa will not be able to press a long-term conflict."

Naruto's audience stood in silence for awhile, contemplating his orders, and the consequences of the Akatsuki's plans for the Chunin Exam invasion. The next time someone asked a question, another silver-haired male, a little bit older than Kabuto, who wore the chunin vest, spoke up. "How are we to go about in getting Konoha the information they need?"

"I'm glad you asked, dear sensei," Naruto said in response. "While several other of you have special orders that you will soon be receiving, your role will be the most important one here, sensei."

The unnamed man blinked. "What am I to do, Naruto-san?"

Naruto frowned slightly. He didn't really like having to do what he had to do, but it had to be done. "I am afraid that you will have to turn 'traitorous' to Konoha, sensei. In the process, you will be captured by Konoha ANBU, and then interrogated. There, you will claim to be working under Orochimaru, and tell about how his spy network is being put into overtime in preparation for his invasion." None asked about how the faux double-agent would be retrieved. They all knew Naruto was too loyal to his brother-in-arms to let one be executed. A couple who knew about his abilities had already worked out what Naruto would do: the Genin-to-be would use a chakra-heavy version of the **Sh****ōten no Jutsu**that the traitor would be able to control from afar. Once said traitor was executed, the T&I officials would burn his corpse, and that would allow Naruto to disperse the clone.

With that issue settled, Naruto surveyed his audience. "That said, does anyone else have any questions?"

The same blonde-haired man from earlier came up with something. "You said Han Kuroi is going to be replacing his grandfather the current Tsuchikage at the Chunin Exam finals. Where is Ōnoki going to be at the time?"

That was something Naruto had overlooked in the initial briefing, but had no problem answering. "Ōnoki is getting on in his old age. While he is still perfectly capable of defending Iwagakure, he doesn't have the strength to make the trek all the way from Iwa to Konoha and then still assist in a war." That answered, he then asked, "Any more questions?"

When none were to be had, he finished off, "Very well, then this meeting is over. You all either have your orders or will receive orders very soon. Dismissed." With that, Naruto began to power down the **Gent****ōshin no Jutsu** that allowed all of the members of the brotherhood to communicate long distance, and slowly the holograms began to flicker out and disappear.

* * *

Naruto sat back in the chair in his secret underground bunker, which he had established years prior for the members of the Akatsuki to go to in case of emergency, and for him to transmit from. It had taken a while to get it set up, particularly considering that he had to create a chakra-draining clone that would pretend to go about day to day business, live in his apartment, and having all scrying attempts by the Sandaime be redirected unto his clone. Soon enough, he would have a second roommate, a refugee from Konoha's law enforcement. With that thought aside, he let his mind drift to the last week...

Fū. Just last week he had made the trip to Ame, as he had made semiannually since the first time he was there and had dark revelations made to him. In the last two years, he had met his goddess, who was contained in the shell of a beautiful young girl with chocolate brown skin, light lime-green hair, and violet pupilless eyes. She was an amazon in her personality, yet fairly sweet once you got to know her well. She was also one of the four jinchuuriki that Yahiko had managed to bring into the fold of Akatsuki, and the only vessel not to be from one of the Five Great Hidden Villages, coming from Takigakure.

Because the Nanabi no Kabutomushi had been one of the eight original bijuu that Senju Hashirama had presented to the other nations, very few people hated Fū. Afraid of her, maybe - who wouldn't be when you contain a bijuu - but they didn't hate her, simply because the Nanabi hadn't been free in over seventy years except for between sealings. Other jinchuuriki who lost themselves to the corrupting influence of their bijuu, seal instability, or were simply bloodthirsty on their own might be loathed, such as Yagura of Kirigakure, but Naruto was the only one who was hated simply because he contained a bijuu, one who had attacked Konoha and slaughtered thousands.

As a result, Fū had been treated fairly well in growing up, and had managed to graduate from her academy at the age of nine - Takigakure had dwindled in power in the last half-century, so having a weapon of mass destruction on hand wasn't of much importance to them. She had since become a Special Jonin in Takigakure, while in truth she was a member of Taki's Akatsuki. She even geared her career path for maximum benefit - using her inhuman stamina and the flexibility of her body granted by the Nanabi, she had become a courier nin favoured by Shibuki, the current leader of Taki, and often delivered documents within half the time regular ninjas could. While she was out of the village, however, she crisscrossed the Elemental Nations, delivering important missives from member to member of the Akatsuki.

When Naruto first met her two years ago, it had been during a special meeting, in which Yahiko-sama had brought together the four jinchuuriki that were on his side already - Roshi (who had gone back to work in Iwa part-time, while working undercover), Gaara (who didn't really need to deceive his village leader, considering Sasori-sama was a willing accomplice of Yahiko-sama), Fū, and himself. The four had bonded together during the meeting, and Naruto had made good friends with Roshi and Gaara, but Fū was different. That was where he had fallen in love with her. She was fiery in her mannerisms, he was calm, but easygoing. They just simply clicked so well it was amazing, though she beat him up the first time he called her "Fū-chan". Naruto shivered. He definitely wouldn't call her that again.

When they first met, Fū was 13 - two years older than he was. The age difference was slightly awkward, but the simple difference of two years passing made it less so, and developing hormones made the relationship that much more enjoyable, as they had embraced often during the week he was in Ame. He loved the silky feeling of her hair, and the smooth texture of her skin, and holding her in his arms.

Naruto shook his head. As much as he loved to reminensce about his passion, he would have to hold that off until later. For now, he had a plan to put into motion. Tomorrow, worlds would collide, and he would need to induct another person to the house rules in his underground chamber.

* * *

"To pass this year's Genin test, you must be able to create three **Bunshin** of yourself. A bit of leeway will be given to the shade of your Bunshins and their features, but they must still be of reasonable quality. Any questions?" Iruka didn't expect there to be any questions, so he was surprised when he saw a hand be raised up by a blonde-haired trainee wearing an orange jumpsuit. He sighed, wondering what Naruto was going to ask. "Yes, what is it Naruto?"

"Hai, Iruka-sensei. Why is that, despite the academy records showing that for the last thirty years, the graduation test has always been randomized between the **Kawarimi, Henge**, and **Bunshin**, and never the same two years in a row, this makes it the third year in a row that the **Bunshin** being the graduation test?"

At this, several of the students in the room turned their heads around, looks of shock and awe on their faces at the class clown actually asking a good question. Naruto, for his part, actually knew the answer - the academy adminstration and several of the village councilors didn't want to see him graduate, and would do everything in their power to keep him from becoming a genin. He could just imagine their cackling with glee, hands upright and fingers pointed straight and tongue lolling when they learned he was unable to do a common **Bunshin** (though he could, but he deliberately botched it up every time), and the academy curriculum was 'mysteriously' changed three years ago to cut out chakra control exercises, which would instead be relegated to the responsibility of a jonin-sensei after graduation.

He could practically see Iruka sweating as he tried to come up with a solution, giving off light stammers and stutters in the meantime. He eventually came up with an OK answer. "The administration decided that every student should have a decent amount of chakra control before they can graduate." Acceptable, if it weren't for the fact they cut out the exercises.

Naruto let it go after that, not wanting to attract any more attention from his fellow classmates who were still in awe. He let out a light snort. Even if people paid attention to him, they didn't actually _pay attention_. That was how Nagato-sama managed to fool everyone in the village for over a year. Idly, he rubbed the back of his head, where Yahiko-sama had drawn two 'dummy' seals - they would look the exact same as the previous seals did, but they wouldn't actually work.

* * *

"Naruto, you FAIL!"

_Way to lay it on there, Iruka-sensei_, Naruto thought to himself. _You were practically spitting it out there! _Donning a look of dejection, he looked over at the sickly-looking clone laying on the floor.

"Hmm, Iruka," Mizuka said, catching his fellow instructor's attention. "We could pass him, after all he did create a clone."

Iruka shook his head. "No way Mizuki! All the other graduates made two decent clones. Naruto made just one, and it's pathetic. It isn't even standing upright!"

Mizuki backed off about halfway through Iruka's rant, and while Iruka was continuing to talk, he caught Naruto's gaze. Naruto gave the slightest of nods for Mizuki to interpret. _Let the plan begin._

* * *

"What Iruka doesn't want you to know is that YOU are the Kyuubi no Kitsune that killed his parents!" Mizuki yelled at Naruto, spit and foam completing the scene of insanity as he cackled at Naruto's subsequent despair.

"I...I'm the Kyu-ubi?" Naruto asked, wailing in despair. Inwardly, he rolled his eyes. For all the good that Mizuki was doing in acting and hamming it up for Iruka's sake, he had the corniest lines. Still, it was good that Mizuki was pulling it off perfectly - he could feel the tingle at the back of his neck that indicated that the Hokage was watching the scene with his scrying orb.

For his own part, Mizuki could feel it too. Sneering at the Hokage's attitude of sitting in his office and watching the battle from afar (while pretending to be sneering at Naruto), he let his eyes glaze over a bit more. "Damn right, Kyuubi gaki! Orochimaru-sama claims you're the son of the Yondaime, but I find that hard to believe! Someone as noble as him could never be your father, you demonspawn!"

_Hamming it up_, Naruto repeated in his head like a mantra, but listened as he heard Mizuki shout out, "Time to die, gaki!" The silver-haired man took his Fuma Shuriken off his back, and threw it at the paralyzed genin, whose face had become even more contorted in shock at the revelation of his heritage.

He held his face in place as Iruka jumped in front of the Fuma Shuriken, taking it to his back. "W-Why?" Naruto asked, stuttering out in a manner that one could stutter only after seeing one of his trusted senseis attack another one of his trusted senseis, then reveal that his childhood hero damned his life by sealing an ancient force of nature that had wiped out a fifth of the village into him at his birth, then revealed that same childhood hero was his father, before trying to kill him, injuring his second sensei again in the process. Still, Iruka was a fairly nice guy. Naruto didn't want to cause him the pain that he was going through right now, but Iruka was too loyal to risk bringing into the brotherhood.

"Because...after my parents died, there was nobody to care for me, or acknowledge me...I turned to pranking and being a clown, just like you did, to get rid of the pain...Naruto, you must have been in a lot of pain as well...I'm so sorry, Naruto...I should've done a better job of helping you..." That was all Iruka managed to stammer out before he collapsed in the mud, his body having numbed itself temporarily, but he could still see the scene in front of him.

Naruto looked up at Mizuki, fury in his eyes. If they didn't get this over with quickly enough, others might arrive, and ruin his chance to demonstrate his 'newest' jutu. "You..." he mumbled, shaking a clenched fist at Mizuki, "NEVER lay a hand on Iruka-sensei AGAIN!" Forming his hand in a cross-shaped seal, he let out a roar that echoed throughout the forest, reaching the heavens above, **"TAJU KAGE BUNSHIN NO JUTSU!"**

Several hundred orange-clothed clones appeared, letting out a war cry proportional in volume to Naruto's earlier shout. Needless to say, even if he was controlling a clone through meditation from long-distance and only feeling a fraction of the sensations the clone was feeling, Mizuki still squirmed and cursed his leader for overdoing it on the punches.

A few minutes later, with Mizuki's clone near-dead on the ground, Iruka was astonished, as his body had recovered enough that he was able to move his arms and lower body. He could still feel his back bleeding out, but knew that it wouldn't be fatal unless he bleeded to death, which would take a while. "Naruto, come over here," he motioned to his favourite student, while he pressed his back against a tree-trunk to staunch the bleeding. Naruto let out a small "Huh?", but complied, walking over. "Close your eyes."

Naruto did so. _Foolish, so easy to manipulate_, he thought as he felt cold metal being pressed against his forehead. Still, he liked Iruka rather much, and even if the whole thing had been staged by him and Mizuki, he still couldn't help but feel appreciative of Iruka's efforts, as he slowly hugged the chunin who had relinquished his own hitai-ate.

The spectacle was broken up as an ANBU who donned an eagle mask appeared in the clearing. "Hokage-sama requests your presence in his office right away." The new genin and the academy teacher looked at each other, blinked together, and got up to head out to the Hokage Tower.

* * *

**Funnily enough, the way this story originated was that I wanted at least one story where Mizuki wasn't a bad guy (or at least anti-Naruto), and that got me to thinking that he'd had to know Naruto a bit beforehand, and then a few random plot ideas I had smashed together (Illuminati-type organization, Yahiko living, a good Akatsuki) and resulted in this. Obviously, the forest scene differs a lot from canon now that Naruto and Mizuki are staging it for their own manipulative purposes. That, and no 'Naruto runs away and everyone follows after him' scene. Naruto knows that Iruka accepts him for who he is (or at least, who he supposedly is), and doesn't need acknowledgment. That, and I didn't really feel like writing the whole chase scene either. The same reason for why I sort of jump through the whole Genin exam scenes and Mizuki 'tricking' Naruto into stealing the forbidden scroll - I think it works well enough as a writing device while proofreading it to cut out a lot of the in-between stuff (and again I'm too lazy to write all of it through).**

**And now you know who the pairing is - Naruto/F****ū****, the seven-tailed vessel who hails from Takigakure. Damn she's hot. I wanted a jinchuuriki pairing here, and while I heart Yugito, I already have another story idea with a Naru/Yugi, and I don't want to use the same pairing in more than one story (seriously, it's sickening looking at an author with like seven or eight fics, and EVERY ONE OF THEM is a Naruto/Hinata.) Perhaps the introspective here is a bit sappy, but I want to show how Naruto has managed to find companionship, even if out of the village.**

**Thanks for the Yagura feedback. The main thing that I'm undecided on is the Wave mission - if I work it out that Yagura isn't being manipulated because Madara doesn't exist in this 'verse, should I still have the bloodline purge and Swordsmen revolt? Because if I don't, then I'll have to change the Wave mission or make a new mission up entirely since Zabuza and Haku wouldn't be nuke-nin. **

**Speaking of Yagura, is it just me or does he and Kabuto seem to look a bit similar? In grey-scale they both have the same relative shade of hair, and similar hair styles. Yagura in the artbook and on the cover of chapter 422 (or whatever chapter it is) doesn't share that much of a resemblance, but his picture in 458 shows a bit of a different pose that makes the resemblance a bit closer.**

**Next chapter: the Sandaime makes an appearance, you will likely end up cursing the Sandaime even more, Genin Team assignments**


	3. All's Well That Ends Well

**Chapter Three - "All's Well that Ends Well"**

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**This'll probably be the last extremely quick update, but I'll still try to update at a reasonable pace. Rise of a Kitsune will also see an update soon.**

**It seems in the last little bit a bunch of new characters have been added to the FF Naruto Characters database, so now I can properly put F****ū**** in as the second character.**

**I'd appreciate it if people reviewed. I realize most stories don't start to get reviews until a few chapters have passed unless they're crack one-shots or two-shots, but it's the reviews in the early going that help keep the author motivated! Particularly since I'm going at this fairly quickly, and need to keep it up. That, or PayPal me money, though I highly doubt anyone would actually do that :P**

**Just an FYI for this chapter, Naruto hates Sakura, and doesn't cover this up with the pretense of loving Sakura. He hates her, both internally and externally.**

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During the time that Mizuki had confronted Naruto and Iruka and injured Iruka before getting a beatdown by Naruto, Sarutobi Hiruzen, the Sandaime Hokage, had been up in his office, recovering from a dose of Naruto's inventive **Oiroke no Jutsu**, after having sent out an ANBU squad to retrieve all three participants in the battle (they had hung back after showing up, trying to decipher the situation there, before sending Naruto and Iruka to the Hokage's office). _It's rather fortunate_, mused the Sandaime, _that they weren't around to hear Mizuki's declaration of Naruto being the son of Yondaime._

_That_ was something that bore some serious thinking about. He could see Orochimaru having figured out that Naruto was the Yondaime's son. That snake was devious, and had been a genius before he went wrong. What worried him was the treacherous Sannin telling a simple subordinate of his, a spy of little talent, about this. What was he trying to do, letting that fact leak like that?

A wave of dread washed over the Sandaime, as he staggered over, standing up only because his hand was on his desk. "Kuso!" He muttered to himself. Orochimaru was probably trying to cause unrest in Konoha by spreading it around as a rumour. Very few thought to connect the Yondaime and Naruto, but if somebody was told beforehead of their relation, if they took a second look it would begin to make sense to them. If enough people began to believe, the rumours would spread, and it could cause a civil war. And then the rumours would spread wide enough that a spy might catch wind of it and send news off to Iwa, who would send off an assortment of assassins to kill the son of the _Kiiroi Senk__ō_.

But the greatest problem of all was Naruto. Even the suppression seal and the hypersensitivity seal that Naruto bore on the back of his head couldn't guarantee his loyalty to Konoha, and so the Sandaime had wished to present the fact of Naruto's tenant to him in a controlled setting, where he could use the hypersensitivity seal again. That Naruto now knew who his father was only made it worse, as he would likely see it as the village betraying him, and his icon, the Yondaime, also having cursed him to a wretched existence, doubly so being his father.

He let out a sigh. When the ANBU squad got here with Iruka and Naruto, he would have to apply memory seals to all of them, then have Mizuki put in the highest-security cell, accessible by only him and Ibiki, head of T&I, so he couldn't tell anyone else about Naruto's heritage.

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Naruto woke up, but didn't move or change his breathing or the beat of his heart, trying to get a grasp of his surroundings before he feigned wakeness. Concentrating on the feel and shape of the material of his bed, he realized that it was a couch he was sleeping on. To his left, there were two chakra signatures - one was that of Iruka, and the other was of the Hokage. Now convinced that he was in the Hokage's office, he tried to remember how he came to be in the Hokage's office. He couldn't. Therefore, Naruto concluded, his and Mizuki's plan must have succeeded, and the Hokage had placed a memory seal on him to 'forget' the knowledge of the Yondaime being his father. Then, he read his memories to see how far back he was sealed. He was about midway through learning the **Kage Bunshin no Jutsu**, and had just managed to make two clones. At that time, he hadn't felt the tingle on the back of his neck, so he would be able to replicate it here without suspicion.

Naruto let out a yawn, and began to get up, stretching his body. Rubbing the whiskers on his cheek, he turned around, and expressed surprise at seeing where he was. "W-wha-? Hokage-jiji, Iruka-sensei, what's going on?"

Iruka just looked forlorn, sitting in a chair oppposite Naruto. The old man in question smiled, letting out a puff of smoke from his favourite pipe. "Well, for one Naruto-kun, I have to ask you some questions." As Naruto nodded his ok blanky, Sarutobi started off, "First of all, did Mizuki ask you to steal the Forbidden Scroll?"

Naruto could remember that far back, so he jumped up out of the couch. "Yeah, Mizuki-sensei said that if I managed to get the Forbidden Scroll and learn a jutsu that I could pass the make-up exam! Here, lemme show you!" At that, Naruto put his hands together in a cross shape, and yelled out, **"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!"** In a poof of smoke, five solid clones appeared in the room.

Sarutobi let out another puff of smoke. Good, at least he wouldn't have to help Naruto for the next hour in finishing up the technique. The memory seal hadn't gone so far back that it totally eliminated the memory of how to do it from his mind. "Naruto," the aged leader began to warn the failed graduate, "Mizuki was a traitor." That froze Naruto in his tracks. "He was planning to get you to steal the Forbidden Scroll of Seals for him, and then frame you for the act."

"W-what happened, then?" Naruto asked. "I can't seem to remember anything after I learned the Kage Bunshin."

Sarutobi already had an answer made up for that. "Iruka found you before Mizuki got to you, but the both of you were knocked out. I believe Mizuki hit the two of you in the head hard enough to make you forget the last hour or so before the incident. Iruka doesn't remember much after Mizuki had intercepted him at his apartment and told him you had stolen the Scroll."

Naruto was beginning to look mortified. "B-but then does that mean I don't graduate?" His shoulders sagging, and his face taking on a look of dejection, he almost looked, amusingly enough, like a wounded fox kit.

Sarutobi shook his head. "No, no, Mizuki was your superior, and I can't fault you for obeying orders. Since you learned an advanced bunshin technique, I'm graduating anyways." Here, he opened a drawer in his desk, took out a brand new hitai-ate (**A/N**: Sarutobi put Iruka's hitai-ate back in Iruka's forehead, since that whole passing down of the forehead protector 'never happened'), and tossed it into Naruto's hands.

"Alright!" Naruto cheered, dancing around awkwardly as he put on his hitai-ate. "I'm a ninja now, I'm a ninja, I'm a ninja, I'm a-"

"Naruto!" Sarutobi shouted, cutting off his unofficial grandson. "Now that you're a genin, I have something to tell you." Once he saw that he had caught Naruto's full attention, he continued on, "Tell me, what do you know of the Kyuubi no Kitsune?" From behind him, there came a gasp from Iruka.

"Uh, Iruka-sensei said in class that the Yondaime killed the Kyuubi with a super awesome ninja technique, at the cost of his own life!" was the response.

"A lie." Sarutobi said bluntly. "You can't kill a bijuu, so he had to seal it away."

"You mean like into a scroll, or something?" Naruto asked. "Is that why they claim the Yondaime killed it, so that someone doesn't know there's a scroll with a lot of power in it to steal?"

Sarutobi blinked. Naruto was incredibly insightful at times, yet still so far away from the truth. "Not quite, Naruto-kun. Maybe so with a lower class bijuu, but anything above that has to be sealed into a child. A newborn one, at that."

A look of horror began to dawn on Naruto's face. "How new is new, exactly?"

That was an odd question. Sarutobi saw that Naruto was coming on the uptake, but how new did he want it to be. _Hmmm_, Sarutobi thought, _might be in denial_. "Any child born within three days of the sealing. After that, their chakra coils begin to solidify too much. A bijuu can't be sealed in them after that, because by then their coils are too used to normal chakra. After that, a bijuu's chakra will be too poisonous, but before that their coils will adapt to containing the bijuu's chakra."

Silence permeated through the room, with Naruto's head down facing the ground until Naruto quietly spoke up, "Then I'm the one the Kyuubi no Kitsune?" A nod from both Sarutobi and Iruka confirmed it. "That's what that seal on my stomach is for, containing the Kyuubi?" Another nod from Sarutobi alone this time. "What benefits do I get from having the fox sealed in my stomach?"

"Well," the Sandaime said, leaning back in his chair, "We're not quite sure, Konoha has never had a jinchuuriki before - that's the term we use for demon vessels, by the way - but what we do know is that you will have a near infinite amount of stamina and more chakra than basically anyone else."

Naruto began to tremble in slight anger. "Jiji..." he trailed off, "Are you saying that the reason I couldn't do the **Bunshin** was because I had too much chakra to control the jutsu in the first place?"

Sarutobi stopped, cowed. _Kuso! I was hoping this wouldn't come up! _"Yes, most likely. That's why you were able to do the **Kage Bunshin** so easily, and learn it in only a few hours - the technique requires a lot of chakra to pull off. Most jonin take days to learn it because of how easily they tire out in the learning process, and can only use a few at a time, but because of your massive reserves, you can put that technique to a far greater use." _Still, it wouldn't do to tell him the side-effect of the jutsu. If he does, then he might become too powerful too fast to continue controlling. _"I'm sorry, Naruto, it just never occurred to me that you wouldn't be able to control that amount of chakra for a regular Bunshin technique. I'm beginning to have problems remembering things in my old age, and I simply have too much work to do sometimes to think about an academy student's problems at his basic jutsu techniques."

"That's alright jiji, I forgive you," Naruto said, flashing the Sandaime a grin, before settling on a grim look. "But then...who were my parents?"

The wizened leader of Konoha thought this question might come up again, despite him telling Naruto that nobody knew who his parents were many times when he was younger. "I'm afraid, Naruto, that nobody has an idea of who your parents we-"

He was cut off by a loud cry of **"BULLSHIT!"** from Naruto, who had raised his face. Sarutobi was caught off guard by the tears dripping from his eyes, and the distraught look in his eyes. "I read the history books on the Kyuubi attack. That monster's killing intent induced several premature births, and you just said that anyone born up to two days before October 10th would have worked! The Yondaime had plenty of newborns who had both parents still living that he could have used. So why, why," Here Naruto choked in the middle of his sentence, eyes bloodshot, nose getting clogged up, while he mentally pat himself on the back for his grade-A acting, "Why did he choose me, an orphan without a heritage? W-was I expendable? Was that why he cho-"

This time Naruto was cut off, as Sarutobi let out a bellow. **"ABSOLUTELY NOT!"** the Sandaime said, losing his patience for the first time in several years, smacking the wood of his desk with finality. This wasn't going as planned. Naruto was losing faith in the Yondaime. Calming down, Sarutobi began to present his grandfatherly image. "I have no idea why Minato chose you, but he must have had a reason. He wanted for you to be seen as a hero, but unfortunately, the village didn't see it that way." When Naruto looked like he was beginning to protest, Hiruzen cut him off again. "When that occurred, I made an S-Class law stating that nobody could tell anyone who didn't already know about the true result of Minato's battle with the fox, except for me, and you when you came to learn of the knowledge. That way, the younger generation wouldn't grow up knowing of your burden. You have admittedly faced an uphill battle, but you have made friends amongst your classmates, have you not?"

Naruto's tears had begun to trickle up, but he still was sniffing a bit. "Yeah, I guess...Shika and Choji, Kiba and Akamaru, and I guess Ino and Shino to an extent..."

Here, Iruka finally spoke up. "I'm sorry, Naruto." When Naruto looked over at Iruka, he continued. "I have to admit, when you first came into my class, I hated you. The Kyuubi killed my parents." When he saw Naruto begin to pale, he hastily added, "But over the years, I began to see you for you. You're not the fox. You are truly Uzumaki Naruto." Giving him a smile, Iruka got out of his chair, giving a slight wince at the pain in his back from an injury he couldn't even remember getting, and walked over to Naruto. As he spoke, he pat Naruto's shoulder with one hand and gave the blonde a light, affectionate noogie with the other, "Team assignments are in one week. Be there."

Sarutobi began to give a genuine smile, though the reason for it wasn't as he would have Naruto believe. Hopefully Iruka's display of affection would be able to get rid of Naruto's delusions. "You are dismissed, both of you. But, Naruto," he said, watching Naruto's head swing around again, "If you need to talk to me again, my door is open almost anytime."

"Yes, Hokage-jiji," Naruto said, nodding his head several times. "I know." _I know that you've put several seals on me over the years, tried to manipulate me for your own purposes, and hide several secrets behind your so-called 'Will of Fire' that would put Orochimaru's experiments to shame_. He left shortly after that with Iruka, who offered to buy him some ramen at Ichiraku's Ramen Stand.

**

* * *

**

Naruto walked into his underground chamber, having had several bowls of ramen to calm himself down from his display in Sarutobi's office and the nagging fear of having his shadowy dealings being found out. In the central lounge area there sat Mizuki, who was sweating slightly. He didn't have to ask to figure out why - Mizuki was meditating and controlling his clone from afar. Even if your perception of pain from controlling a pain was only one tenth of what it would be in person, some of the interrogation methods really could hurt, such as jamming a toothpick up one's fingernails. He had to hand it to Mizuki for sacrificing his life on the outside world - it had been the most open move that Konoha's Akatsuki had made in it's decade of existence, and perhaps its most pivotal, and Mizuki would pay a high price for it. The least he could do was give Mizuki refuge, and his place had plenty of rooms for one to make a bedroom out of it.

It was here, safe from any attempts at scrying, that he finally took out a mirror, and looked around his body. Eventually, he found a slight black dot on the side of his head that he knew hadn't been there before. A casual observer would have glimpsed past it, but Naruto knew his body well - it was his only defense against seals of a microscopic size, something he would never allow to be put on his body willingly again unless he had to. Quickly, he performed the seal for a **Kage Bunshin**. The clone grabbed a magnifying glass, and put it up to the seal. After a few minutes of analyzing it, the clone looked up. "It looks like a standard memory seal, oyabun. What should I do?"

"Deactivate it, and redraw a dummy seal over it," Naruto said, gritting his teeth for the oncoming pain as the clone took out a sealing kit. The first was a special solvent used to dissolve the sealing ink that most fuuinjutsu users used when they condensed the application of a seal into handseals. The Five Elements Seal was one example of a seal - it was often used in training exercises for chakra control, but required a lot of work to draw the seal over and over again to apply to a trainee. Over time, several geniuses in justu theory managed to come up with a way to take the mechanics of a seal and translate it into hand seals, and the Five Elements Seal was one of the first to go, but anything complex just wouldn't work.

The clone dissolved a couple of lines, causing Naruto to have a brief spasm as the seal forcibly deactivated, then took some more black ink and drew over the lines that had just been erased. Naruto thanked the clone out of habit (even if it was himself), dismissed it, and then sat down to meditate. The memory seal had cut off two hours of memories, roughly from about halfway through his Kage Bunshin training up to when he first got into the Hokage's office. Even though they were restored, he still had to actually _remember_ them to remember what had happened. So, Mizuki had pulled it off without a hitch. That was good. The Sandaime would be positively frightened that a _spy_ knew Naruto was the son of the Yondaime, and would begin to tighten up security soon, especially once Mizuki 'leaked' news of the invasion to come.

Naruto finally got up, and wandered towards a wooden door. Although nothing distinguished it from any of the other doors in the hallway he was currently in, it was what was behind it that was important. Giving a slow knock on the door, he walked in, only to be ambushed by a cry of "Tou-san!" before something jumped up into his arms and hugged his chest. Naruto let a genuine warm smile adorn his face, the sparkle even making its way into his sea-blue eyes, as he glanced at his adoptive son, Saisei, who was a red-headed boy that looked to be about five. Three physical oddities stuck out that distinguished him from being a human though - two red fox ears atop his head, a single fox tail swinging from the bottom of his back, and slit pupils with red iris.

There was a difference between the seal that Namikaze Minato used to seal the Kyuubi no Kitsune away, and the seals that every other bijuu was being contained in. That was that the Yondaime Hokage had called upon the Shinigami, and offered up his soul to the Death God to contain the Kyuubi. Though the Kyuubi could still break free, it would be a lot more difficult for it to do so.

When he learned of the chakra-draining seal that Yahiko had come up with, the Kyuubi knew that his time was at an end - Minato's seal was still as strong as ever, and he highly doubted he could break it within the five-year time frame it would take for Naruto to fully drain his yokai, particularly when he was losing a tail at a pace of once every three months and would lose bijuu status within three years of the initial application. Knowing that, the Kyuubi made a special deal with Naruto - in exchange for the kitsune lord imparting as much wisdom and knowledge as he could unto Naruto, the son of Yondaime would allow him enough yokai to form a physical body and stay in ningenkai.

What the Kyuubi didn't tell Naruto until about six months before he finished absorbing his yokai was what would happen to him because of the Shinigami's seal. Unlike the other eight bijuu, who would only experience a bit of pain when their souls were ripped apart from their vessels, Kyuubi would have to forfeit his memories. Essentially, he would be forcibly reborn, and reborn he was. His last condition was that Naruto would adopt the reborn kitsune.

Naruto had dubbed him Saisei, who had recently turned two. There were a few things that freaked him out at first. While he had gotten Saisei fixed on a healthy diet, the kitsune also needed to feed on chakra, something which all young demons needed to consume from their mother until they were old enough to gather it on their own. Naruto had gotten pass that by sustaining Saisei's hoshi no tama, pumping it full of his chakra once a month. The other was his stage of growth - Saisei had quickly grown from a newborn to the equivalent of a human four-year-old within eight months, but had slowed down after that. Consulting with the then-wandering Roshi, Naruto learned that the quick growth was a defensive maneuver against predators in Makai, but after that, slow growth would occur from there on in. It wouldn't be for at least another few years that Saisei could defend himself when his chakra reserves grew enough to use kitsune bi, and another twenty years before he would be able to drift away from his tou-san's loving side.

Naruto could honestly say that he loved Saisei as a son. His presence was about the only thing that kept him going on during some of the dark days in Konoha, playing the fool, with nearly the entire village against him. He held his son for awhile longer there, content with the purring sound that a kitsune could give off when content, before putting him to bed.

**

* * *

**

"Naruto, what the hell are you doing here? Only those who graduated last week are supposed to be here."

That question came from Nara Shikamaru. Normally, he would've found it too troublesome to even ask a question like that, but Naruto's question during class yesterday had had him interested, particularly from one with a reputation for being the dead last in class, and he actually went to look through the records after his mom had finished planting kisses on his forehead for graduating. Naruto was right - never once did the graduation exam use the same ninjutsu two years in a row for the last thirty years, and yet the **Bunshin no Jutsu** was repeated last year, and this year made it the third in a row. The only thing that could get Shikamaru really interested was something that involved thinking, such as strategy games, puzzles, or mysteries, and this was definitely something that belonged to the latter two categories.

Naruto thankfully had already had something to cover up for that question, a half-truth given to him by the Sandaime, which he knew would have come from someone eventually. "Eh, after I failed last week, Iruka took me aside and found that I had an unnatural amount of chakra, even more than Sasuke, despite my lack of any notable heritage that could have given me this chakra. He determined that I simply lacked the chakra control to use it, and because they cut out the chakra control exercises from the curriculum before we ever saw them, and I have no guardian who could teach me them, I simply wasn't cut out for being able to use it. So, I got a scroll that shows how to do a more chakra-intensive Bunshin technique that requires less control, and managed to get it done before the week, which worked as a make-up test."

Shikamaru blinked. He had always assumed the reason Naruto couldn't do the **Bunshin** was because he had too little chakra. There wasn't anything in Naruto's actual performance that would indicate he had too little or too much, but considering they were only twelve, he had assumed it was too little. Now that he thought about it, that was flawed thinking - the amount of chakra a shinobi had was usually proportional to the amount of stamina they had, and Naruto had oodles of the latter, as he often outlasted the rest of the class when they went outdoors for exercise, barely panting after an amount of running that left most of the kunoichi-in-training and some of the boys on the ground.

It was getting more troublesome by the moment, but bore thinking about. It seemed almost as if there was a conspiracy of sorts against Uzumaki Naruto. What could his classmate have done that would be so troublesome? Maybe he would ask his dad later tonight, if he could remember to do so. For now, though, he had just latched onto a stray thought, remembering something else he had seen while reading through the archives. "Hey, Naruto, did you graduate as the dead last then?"

Naruto frowned, knowing exactly where Shikamaru was going with this. "Yeah, unfortunately. While I would've gotten extra points for being able to use an advanced version of the **Bunshin**, because I graduated through a make-up test I was automatically put at the bottom of the class. Why?"

Shikamaru grinned, not knowing that his class-mate and part-friend already knew what he was going to say, but would put on a show for the sake of keeping up pretense anyways. "Troublesome." Oh Kami, how he loved using that word, except for around his mom, who would often hit him with a frying pan as if it was a four-letter euphemism around her household. "Did you know that historically the dead-last is put with the rookie of the year and kunoichi of the year?"

Naruto stood there, detached for a few seconds, as if puzzling out just who the rookie of the year and kunoichi would be. When he figured enough time had passed, his eyes widened and jaw dropped, as he clutched his head in between his hands, and yelled out "NOOOOOOO!", scaring a few students who were close by.

For his part, Shikamaru got a kick out of it, but he had seen for the briefest of moments a flicker in Naruto's eyes, of anger, before he had gotten the shocked look. So Naruto already knew who he was most likely to be paired up with. Something didn't add up. Naruto suddenly asked an intelligent question in class yesterday, and had more chakra than most people did. Was he hiding some of his abilities like Shikamaru himself did along with Shino? Shikamaru could accept that, but still, why would he have failed? Couldn't he have independently figured out he needed better chakra control and gotten a book from the library on exercises? This was getting too troublesome, and so he laid down, head in between his hands, and dozed off again.

Naruto took a seat besides Shikamaru, who would be flanked later by Choji on the other side when the Akimichi showed up. Looking around, he noticed out of the corner of the eye a lavender-eyed Hyuuga in the back let out a small eep when he caught her looking at him, and sink down into her chair. He noticed the hitai-ate around her neck, and barely restrained a growl.

Although he publicly despised Sakura, deep down, he absolutely hated Hyuuga Hinata. She was as meek as they came. He had heard that she was kidnapped when she was young, but really now, she had only just turned three at the time! Most children don't gain much cognitive sense until they turn four, though he had been an exception at three and a half (most likely the Kyuubi's yokai overpowered the suppression seal in early development in some aspects), so she probably didn't remember it at all. Some might think it harsh judgement of his, but even if she had brief flickers from it, all she would remember is being taken from the security of her room out into the cold, being shoved into a bag, and some yelling as her father killed her kidnapper. That was more tame than some of his early nightmares. Never mind that he had been kidnapped when he was five! (Yes, he found it a boon when he finally found out why, but for those first few hours when nobody eplained why he was chilled to the bone)

From the history he had gathered from the branch member Nagato had recruited in his early days, Hinata's father, Hyuuga Hiashi, was a tough-love father, training her harshly, constantly reprimanding her. That he was acceptable of, he couldn't really imagine somebody who was such a major part of your world constantly degrading you (though he knew what it was like to be betrayed by someone who was your whole world), but it was her sibling relationship with her younger sister Hanabi that had his blood boiling. From what the branch member theorized, Hinata's mother, who had died shortly after giving birth to Hanabi, asked Hinata to take care of Hanabi.

Apparently, that meant to be hesitant and weak when fighting against her sister in Jyuken duels, possibly with the intended end result of Hanabi being designated the clan heiress and not receiving the curse seal. Could Hinata not see that she was causing her sister to become overconfident and arrogant? Taking care of somebody meant that sometimes you had to cut them down to make them become stronger, just like he had learned with Saisei. Was Hinata trying to set her sister up to go out on a mission and die, thinking that because she could always beat her older sister up that she was invincible?

Then, Hinata had apparently realized that she was too weak, but instead of trying to find the will within herself to get stronger, she **began stalking him**. From what he could deduce, Naruto believed that Hinata had seen him when he was young, hitting a tree over and over, doing laps, some sort of physical training, and later on, saw a clone of his try to do a **Bunshin no Jutsu** and fail when he needed to pretend that he was training hard to be able to do the Bunshin. Pathetic. Instead of trying to get strong on her own, she was trying to leech off of him. What made it even worse that with her Byakugan, she should have been able to realize he was using too much chakra and needed more control, but she wouldn't even overcome her fear to try approaching him. Maybe she deliberately didn't want him to overcome that stumbling block? Certainly, if this were an alternate universe where he actually was having trouble with the Bunshin, as soon as he managed to do it successfully he would have been able to turn his attention to other endeavours, and become stronger at a rapid pace that would have left her even further behind in his dust.

Still, it ticked him off with her obsession over him, and how she followed him around, to the point that some days he couldn't even get in a proper training when he couldn't ditch her with a clone. He had received word from one of the chunins who gophered in the Hokage's office that Yuuhi Kurenai had struggled to get him put on a team with Hinata under herself, hoping to satisfy the obsession her spiritual daughter had with Naruto. That was the only thing he was glad for with the current team set-up - that he wasn't with Hinata.

But it was how she wore her hitai-ate that absolutely infuriated Naruto. Hinata's reputation said that she was fairly compassionate, if shy, and that she wanted to abolish the Caged Bird Seal that separated the Branch Family of the Hyuuga Clan from the Main Family when she became the head (a position that was quickly leaving her grasp). Yet, she showed up wearing the hitai-ate **around her neck**, as if taunting all the Branch Family shinobi who wore the hitai-ate around their foreheads in the traditional manner to cover up the hideous seal. It was supposed to be a tradition amongst the main family to wear their hitai-ate while on active duty around the neck, yet she wouldn't even start standing up against a minor tradition while she wanted to abolish a major one? He was beginning to wonder if she was just blowing hot air about wanting to abolish the Caged Bird Seal so that her estranged cousin wouldn't treat her with such hostility, but even that didn't work.

Naruto sighed, and began to let his mind drift away from his body, into a frame of mind between sleep and awake - he could observe his surroundings, able to respond at an instant to any threat, but instead lost himself in his thoughts. He didn't particularly wish to watch half a dozen kunoichi throw themselves at Uchiha Sasuke. Despite that he had rejected them every day of every week for the last three years, they still thought that he would give them a chance today when they professed their 'eternal undying love'. He gave a snort at that thought when it came up. He knew what love was - it was what him and Fū shared, and the absense they felt in between meetings truly did make their hearts stronger.

He came back down to Earth when Iruka came into the room, obviously distraught over his friend's betrayal from the night before, but with his memories erased of the actual incident, he wasn't in quite as much of a shock as he might have still been. Iruka let out a cough to shut the room up. Normally, it would take him a while to get everyone to be quiet, along with a special technique that enlarged his head and heightened his voice that many affectionally dubbed the 'Demon's Head Technique', but today was team assignments. Everyone wanted to know who was going to be on their team with them (with all the girls rooting for Sasuke except for Hinata, who wanted her Naruto-kun). Naruto nudged Shikamaru with his elbow to wake up the lazy genius for the team rosters, before leaning forward on his desk. Even if he was bound to hate the team he was going to be put on, he could still derive some entertainment from all the sobbing girls who didn't get their Sasuke-kun on their team.

The first six teams went by fairly quickly. When Iruka got to Team 7, he suddenly froze up, a look of dread plastered onto his face. Watering his throat with saliva, he started to speak, "Team 7...Uchiha Sasuke..." Here, three of the four remaining kunoichi who had yet to be called (Hinata being the odd one out, with her still holding hope because neither her or Naruto had yet been called) held their breath, hoping against hope that their deepest desire would come true, "Haruno Sakura..." those who thought fast enough plugged their ears with their fingers as Sakura screeched out in glee, and Naruto swore that he saw a crack form in the window next to him, while all the other kunoichi began screaming.

Iruka was also prepared, but he quickly lost his patience with the kunoichi's bickering, and activated his Demon Head's Technique, and yelled at the kunoichi, "SHUT THE HELL UP!" Once he had been sure that he had cowed all the kunoichi, he picked up his clipboard again with the team lists, and read out, "...and finally, Uzumaki Naruto."

"Iruka-sensei!" Sakura screeched out again. Looking around, she saw Naruto sitting two rows up with Shikamaru and Choji, then turned around and shook her fist at the instructor. "Why does that Naruto-baka have to be on our team with me and Sasuke-kun! He didn't even graduate!"

While the exchange between the pink-haired girl and the chunin went on, Naruto mumbled to Shikamaru, "This is one of those traditions I really wish didn't pan out. They're putting a hate-possessed avenger together with a kunoichi whose singlemindedly obsessed with the avenger and only got that far based on her brain alone, along with somebody who hates both of them and is hated by both of the first two in return? With my luck, I'll get a sensei who lacks punctuality and won't give a crap at all about his genin team but will be forced to pass us anyways in the secondary test because the Uchiha is on the team."

"Troublesome," Shikamaru agreed, while taking note of how Naruto had mentioned a secondary test. He had seen references to those while looking through the records. It seemed Naruto was smarter than he had given him credit for.

Meanwhile, Naruto might not be a psychic, but he was able to get a general idea of people's emotions on their body language. Hinata was reacting so strongly that he could tell she was distraught, even with his back to her. Good. A weak heiress meant a weakened Hyuuga clan, which meant a weaker Konoha. A minor thing, but a bunch of minor things can add up. Now if only Sakura could just shut up already so Iruka could continue announcing the teams.

* * *

**You might note that a lot of the dialogue tends to be a bit different than what you might remember. There's a reason for this - I remember roughly what the characters say in canon, such as Shikamaru saying that only graduates are allowed in the classroom, but I write down the dialogue first before going to see what exactly they said in the manga. This way, while the lines are similar, they don't give off the feeling of deja vu because they aren't copied straight from the manga (as far too many fics are wont to do).**

**Hinata. Some of you might drop out of the story right there, but I think that her character bears a legitimate look at. In the Chunin exam preliminaries, she depends way too much on Naruto. Naruto's a bit stupid there too, cheering her to go on until the end, but really now, your body has been almost completely shut down, and you egg your opponent on just because your crush is cheering you on? Really? Also, it's implied that Naruto and Hinata basically never talked to each other before their graduation, and Naruto only has talked to her I believe twice after that (before the chunin exam finals, and right after he comes back from his three-year training trip). Yet she still claims she loves him. Why? Because she watched him from afar for so long? She doesn't actually KNOW him at all beyond what she's observed of him. It's my belief that it's more of an obsession than love.**

**That, and she fucking stole Naruto's nindo. I don't care whether Naruto doesn't really show any reaction there, but even in canon, away from all the 'oh he's been beaten up and tortured his whole life and nobody likes him blah blah blah' fannon crap, he's been an orphan his whole life, one who doesn't know who his parents were and who was shunned and only learned why when he graduated. He doesn't exactly have much to call his besides his apartment, and she stole his nindo, which was practically his only higher possession. I might be a bit heavy-handed here with how Naruto portrays Hinata (in reality I only dislike her mildly, part of that coming from how many damn times she gets paired with Naruto), but a person like Hinata is somebody this Naruto would hate with a passion.**

**Also, I'm not too sure just when the Cloud kidnapping occurred, but it definitely ain't like how some fanon authors want it to be when she's six or seven and gets rescued by Naruto and oh suddenly NaruHina. No, when she turns three Neji gets the Caged Bird Seal put on, and the kidnapping occurs shortly thereafter, which is why I have that she barely turned three here.**

**Saisei won't play too much of an actual role. He's mainly there to anchor Naruto's humanity, and a bit of fluff. I needed something to bumrush my way through having a seal enforced by the Shinigami, so rebirth instead of simply being exorcised worked.**

**I apologize if a few scenes seem a bit disjointed at times. I tend not to write chapters from beginning to end - instead, I usually have an idea of the scenes that I'll be writing at the beginning of the chapter, and bounce back and forth between scenes, write out a scene partially before going on to another one, complete one there, work on another here, and so forth. For example, in this chapter, I completed Naruto's talk with Shikamaru immediately, then got through part of Hinata's rant, left that for later, wrote the part with Iruka assigning teams, then wrote Naruto's introspective with Mizuki, getting rid of his seal, then completed the Hinata rant, then worked on and completed the scene with Saisei, and then did the two scenes with Hiruzen.**

**Next chapter: Team meeting, and bell tests. Not sure if I'll cover the whole bell test next chapter. If I rush out a chapter within the next days, probably not, but if I begin to actually start taking time with these chapters, likely the whole thing will be included.**


	4. The Elder Brother

**Chapter Four - "The Elder Brother, The Doubtful Heir, The Scornful Lady, and The Orphan"**

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**Has anybody even spotted the theme for the chapter titles and story title yet?**

**If anyone wants me to add any detail on any specific stuff to previous chapters, I probably can. I updated chapter three twice, once with more Saisei details, once with more on Naruto's rant over Hinata.**

**Just an FYI for those who have a story alert for this - since for whatever reason won't bump my story to the top of the list if I post a new chapter and I already had a new chapter earlier in the day, I WILL post chapters as soon as possible, but if I get a 'two-in-one-day' situation then I'll just pull the last chapter at the end of the day and repost it when the clock rolls over. I need mah new readers, y'know.**

**Don't forget, review at the end of the chapter, plox!  
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Naruto hated Uchiha Sasuke.

He could pity Sasuke, to a degree. After all, his brother, Itachi Uchiha, had slaughtered over 70% of the Uchiha clan when Sasuke was eight, including Sasuke's father, before going nukenin. Sasuke didn't even know why Itachi had done it - over two thirds of the remaining Uchiha had been under the age of eight, while the rest were people who had been hesitant or against the coup d'etat that the Uchiha clan heads were planning against Konoha. Those latter people weren't telling anybody about it, intent on letting their dirty secret die out with them in an unspoken agreement between them and the Sandaime and the Elder Council. He couldn't really call Sasuke gullible for accepting his 'it was done to test my capacity' line when the younger had confronted the elder brother before he left. After all, it wasn't as if this was some alternate universe where Itachi killed everyone who was five and under and therefore completely unable to fight back and defend themselves at all before feeding Sasuke that nonsensical explanation.

Naruto could almost cackle. Itachi had wandered around the Elemental Nations for three years, collecting information while working as a mercenary, and sending it to Konoha using Jiraiya of the Sannin as an intermediary. A year ago, Jiraiya had asked Itachi to join 'this fishy rogue organization that has some S-Class ninja in it and find out what they're up to', which was Kakuzu's gang of bounty hunters. Itachi had done so, only to secretly double-cross Jiraiya once he found out the group's true motivations. Yahiko-sama had brought him into the fold, knowing beforehand that Itachi was most likely a spy who had killed most of the Uchiha either on the Hokage's orders or on his own - after all, one of the few remaining Uchiha adults was one of the original spies he had recruited in Konoha, one of those who had been against the coup. Itachi had been a child born during the beginning stages of the Third Great Shinobi War, and had been five when the Kyuubi attacked. He knew what war was, he knew terror and death, and he was realistic. He changed sides quickly and gave Yahiko-sama as much information as he could.

Itachi had so far delayed sending off a report about the 'Akatsuki' as Kakuzu also named his group, but would soon send out a heavily edited report. From what Yahiko-sama had told Naruto, Jiraiya would soon be reading a document telling about a 'group of nine S-Rank nukenin with several lower-class mercenaries and spies intent on capturing the nine jinchuuriki for purposes I have yet to decipher'. Naruto didn't even doubt that Jiraiya would be fooled all too easily - the old toad _still_ thought Ame was under the control of _Salamander Hanzo_ for crying out loud, something which hadn't been true for a decade and a half.

Sasuke hated his brother, and Naruto could accept that. Sasuke was a bit of a recluse and introverted, Naruto could definitely understand that. What Naruto hated Sasuke for was the rest of his personality. Sasuke constantly degraded anyone who showed weakness. If somebody did something better than him, he would hound them persistently, trying to prove that he was better than everybody there, not in the sense of friendly competition, but trying to prove himself superior - his pride simply couldn't accept that anybody was better than him in ANYTHING. He always went past what was respectable decorum in spars, aiming not to knock someone out, or push them out of the fighting arena, but to injure, hurt, and cripple, often cutting deep if he managed to get a kunai in front of someone's throat. He demanded things, he never requested or asked politely.

Yes, Naruto would freely admit to anyone that he really trusted that he hated parts of Konoha almost as badly as Sasuke loathed Itachi. But he didn't go about being a jackass to innocents in the meantime. That was the difference between him and Sasuke - the raven-haired boy was a grade-A prime asshole. That, and because Sasuke, being the heir to the Uchiha clan, was offered private training, free scrolls and weapons - _and he turned it down _in favour of training on his own, as if the reason Itachi had managed to become an ANBU at eleven wasn't because he had over half a dozen tutors each being the best at their own specialized field. Naruto knew that if he had never been whisked away by Yahiko-sama's agents that he would have jumped at the first chance for a private lesson and immediately got to work on what the tutor said to do, read the scrolls and absorb all their knowledge, or practice with the weapons over and over again until they wore out. That was why he hated Uchiha Sasuke.

And now he was on a team with the prick. Brilliant. _Bear it_, Naruto told himself. _Bear it for the sake of Yahiko-sama's plans_.

---

The flaxen-haired boy had gone off with Choji and Shikamaru to a local BBQ place, the latter two understanding perfectly why he wouldn't want to eat with his teammates, and his platinum-blond female counterpart Ino had come along in the name of the solidarity of the newly-formed Team 10. They had made light talk, with Naruto giving Ino the same explanation as he had to the shadow-user when she asked how he had graduated.

Here he was now, back in the classroom, waiting. All the other teams had already left, leaving only Team 7, who was perhaps the most dysfunctional unit ever. By now, three hours had passed, and Naruto was slowly beginning to lose his patience. One could only take so much of Sakura nattering on and on about her day and how true her love was to 'her Sasuke-kun!' and 'Where is that sensei of ours?!'. There was only one person who his sensei could be, fitting his psyche profile perfectly: Hatake Kakashi. Naruto wasn't sure if Hatake even knew if he was the Yondaime's son, but if he did, he would be getting his revenge, slowly but ever so sweetly, twelve years after the fact. After all, there was a good saying: revenge was a dish best served cold.

Finally, he snapped, and got out of his chair, having had enough of Sakura's non-stop chatter, and shouted out, "Sakura, **SHUT UP!**"

It was a textbook Haruno response as Sakura turned around with a sickening 'I'm superior to you so know your place!' look plastered over her face, as she yelled back in response, "Shut up Naruto-baka!", all while striding across the class room and letting out a punch aimed right at his face, letting out a "CHA!" in the process.

Naruto had no idea where the 'Cha' onamatopeia came from, but one thing was for sure - he most definitely wouldn't tolerate somebody punching him in the face. This was demonstrated as he caught Sakura's wrist in mid-punch and twisted it enough to produce pain. "We're Genin now, Haruno. That means that when we go out on missions, we have to be quiet, or else an enemy ninja will be able to track us from a mile away." He began tightening his grip on her wrist, and a look of anguish began to show up on her face. _Hmph, weakling_, Naruto thought. _I had a higher pain tolerance than that when I was FOUR_. "If you can't accept that, perhaps you'd like to speak to the Hokage about why you felt the need to assault a fellow ninja?"

"Sh-shut up, Naruto-baka..." Sakura cried out, her self-assurance that she was better than this no-name loser because she graduated as top kunoichi quickly shattering. "You're trash, you orphan!"

Sasuke, who had up until this time been sitting at his desk in his brooding pose, elbows stretched out while his chin rested on his clenched hands, barely paying attention to the commotion except to be thankful that Naruto had distracted Sakura away for even a few minutes, jumped up at that last sentence. He didn't like Naruto either, but Sakura had definitely gone over the line making fun of Naruto by calling him an orphan, and he wasn't surprised to see that Naruto's face began to darken.

It was this scene that one silver-haired Hatake Kakashi walked into. "Hmmm," was all the sensei had to say, getting the impression that the team was a disaster waiting to happen, "First impressions...I don't like you." Here, Sakura glared at Naruto, laying the fault for her indignation at his feet. "Meet me up on the roof in five minutes."

---

Hatake Kakashi looked at the assembled cast of genin-potentials sitting across from him. Before coming here, he had visited the homes of his new team, and looked at the profiles the academy teachers had made up for him, and...really now, what the hell was the team planner smoking? Naruto's file he expected to be a load of crock, but it was made quite clear that he loathed both of his teammates. Sakura was a diehard Sasuke fan, and putting her with the object of her obsession would only make it harder to break her out of her habits, and she hated Naruto back. Sasuke had shown troubling attitudes towards his fangirls in the past, and Kakashi shuddered to think of what he would do now that he was forced to work full-time with perhaps his most dedicated (not in a good sense) fangirl, and he had a hard problem with accepting that somebody could be better than him in anything.

Kakashi just sighed. He couldn't begrudge Naruto - after all, the child had only just been born when the Yondaime scooped him up to seal a demon into. However, even if he respected his sensei's sacrifice and didn't want the lone legacy left behind by him to go through life directionless and weak, Naruto would most likely play second fiddle in the team. There were far too many officials pressuring him to train Sasuke as the only jonin-level ninja with a Sharingan who was actually in the ninja force (there were a few other talented Uchihas, but they were all in the Military Police Force, not willing to risk any more adults until the clan could rebuild), and so he would likely have to give Sasuke most of his private training time, with only a small amount for Naruto and Sakura.

He wished he could fail this team right here. He could, in fact, and he would be justified considering the display that had been going on when he came in, but then those same officials would be on his back again. He wondered if it would be possible to request the Sandaime for a chunin or tokubetsu jonin's assistance with the team - between Sakura's temper and fangirl obsessions, getting Sasuke out of the shell he had drawn himself into and teaching him, and just trying to help Naruto out, he didn't think he had enough time to do all that was needed on his lonesome.

"Hmm," Kakashi started off, repeating the beginning of when he walked into Iruka's classroom, "Why don't we start off by introducing ourselves to each other. You know, your name, your likes and dislikes, hobbies and dreams?"

It was Naruto who spoke up first. "Uh, sensei, could go you first please? We three knew each other from class, but we know nothing about you."

That was a reasonable request, and so Kakashi complied. "Hmm, very well. My name is Hatake Kakashi. My likes?...well, I like people who take care of their comrades in and out of a mission." Normally, he wouldn't have said much, but the situation here probably required that he stress they needed to work as a team from the get-go. "My dislikes are the scum who abandon their teammates." If that wasn't direct enough, he didn't know what was. "My hobbies...well, you don't need to know, and my dream?....hmm, I never really thought about that." That was enough for now, he thought, as he pointed at Sakura. "It's your turn next."

Sakura was enthusiastic, as she started off, "Well, my name is Haruno Sakura, and my likes are..." Here, she looked over at Sasuke, and a light red flush appeared on her face as she began to giggle. "My dislikes are Ino-pig and NARUTO-BAKA!" Here, she glared at the yellow-head male. Kakashi frowned behind his mask. Definitely a team that would fall apart at the first opportunity. "My hobbies are..." Again, she blushed and giggled while looking at Sasuke, "And my dream is..." Repeat.

Kakashi saw a chance to lighten the tension and make fun of his kunoichi pupil. "So your likes, hobbies, and dream are to blush and to giggle? Interesting, that..." Getting a twinkle in his eye at Sakura's look of mortification, he pointed as Sasuke. "It's your turn next."

Sasuke didn't mince words. "My name is Uchiha Sasuke. I have few likes, and many dislikes. My hobbies are training, and my dream, which is more of an ambition...is to restore my clan to greatness, and...to kill a certain man." He said all of this without moving out of his brooding pose at all. Kuso. He had hoped against hope that Sasuke wasn't obsessed with killing Itachi, but that small glimmer of hope had just been crushed. Did nobody ever think to send this kid to a psychiatrist? Setting that aside for later, Kakashi pointed at Naruto next, indicating for the presumed Kyuubi vessel to go.

"My name is Uzumaki Naruto!" Naruto shouted out. Good, at least someone on this team had a bit of positive enthusiasm. "My likes are training, ramen, rain." He had grown to appreciate rain in Ame. "My dislikes are the three minutes it takes to cook ramen, and a few certain people." Although Hatake didn't realize it, Naruto meant a lot more than Sasuke and Sakura. "My hobby, I guess, is star-gazing." He appreciated the stars even more when the rain had let up on the occasion during the nighttime. "My dream...to join the ANBU, I guess."

_Hmm, he certainly grew up in an interesting way_, Kakashi thought, _but whatever happened to his dream of becoming Hokage?_ Perhaps it was a momentary thing. Naruto had picked that up and then given it up in the space of about two years, so he had probably just changed his mind as four, five, six-year-olds are wont to do. The part about ANBU was a bit disturbing, though. Not many people actually dreamed of going into ANBU from an early age. Those who did usually wished to escape society...not that he was surprised that Naruto might want to.

"Alright," Kakashi said. "Meet me at Training Ground 7 tomorrow at 5 am with all of your ninja tools and equipments. We're going to have survival exercises." He ended off by chortling.

"Survival exercises?!" Sakura screeched out in disbelief. "But we already did that in the academy!" And she had done miserably on them.

"True," Kakashi said, "But what the instructors don't tell you is that after you graduate and get put on teams, the sensei has to give you a test to make sure you pass their own standards. And guess what?" Here, his eye curved up in what disturbingly seemed to imply that he was smiling underneath. "The failure rate for this test is 66%! Any questions?" He added quickly.

He expected Sakura screeching about how they had worked so hard to get to where they were. He had expected Sasuke to stop brooding in shock as he saw his dreams go up in flames. What he didn't expect was for Naruto to catch what he said right at the very end and ask a question. "I have a question, Kakashi-sensei." Once he saw that he had caught Kakashi's attention, Naruto continued on. "Are you always as late as you were today, or was today just a one-time thing?"

_Hmm_, Kakashi thought. _Very perceptive_. He might have some decent potential. However, he wouldn't give away the fun so easily, so he just flashed Naruto another eye-smile, and said, "Maybe. See you tomorrow, my little genins! Oh, and before I forget, don't eat breakfast or you'll throw up!" before getting up and using a **Konoha** **Shunshin** to get away quickly, leaving a whirlwhind of leaves.

Naruto didn't want to stay there to hear or see what Sasuke or Sakura would do or say in light of Kakashi's revelations, so he quickly ran down the stairs back into the building as well.

---

Naruto was glad to have finally gotten away from Team 7. He honestly was surprised that he hadn't killed any of them, though Kakashi hadn't been so bad. Unless he knew Naruto was the Yondaime's son and hadn't bothered trying to help him in his early life. In which case he wouldn't allow himself to put any trust in Kakashi, ever.

Making sure he had a clone in place to 'live' out his off-team hours and live in the apartment that the Sandaime had gotten him, Naruto turned in the opposite direction, going south, to the slums of Konoha. With the Kyuubi attack, a thousand shinobi had been killed, but several thousands of civilians had also died, many having had heart attacks, strokes or aneurysms from the sheer killing intent. As such, many of the buildings that had been destroyed by the force of the earthquakes that the Kyuubi had caused close to Konoha had never been repaired, as there was nobody to use them, with many parts of the north vacant.

It was here that a few years ago Naruto had began to dig a tunnel down underground using a few ninjutsu imported from Iwa that could transport dirt and rock. The jutsus had no use for battle, but it served a practical use for creating a foundation for buildings, or building trenches on the front lines of a war. Naruto had used it to dig deep underneath the slums, carving out an underground chamber more than forty meters below the surface, placing the entrance inside one of the ruined buildings. It had cost even him, the vessel of the most powerful bijuu on the planet, even when he had absorbed a lot of said bijuu's chakra, quite a lot of energy to work through the whole project, but it was worth it. The bunker had a couple of main uses - visiting members from other Akatsuki branches or Ame would stay here, and any spies that were outed from their position would also come here, operating on guerilla warfare wherever they could. In additional to several bedrooms and a large pantry and kitchen as well as a central lounge area, there were also several training chambers reinforced with seals so they wouldn't fall apart from heavy abuse, as well as a library.

The central lounge was where Naruto found his old sensei (though in truth Naruto had learned just about everything that Mizuki taught in class beforehand), and rolled his eyes at the man as he sat propped up in a couch, reading a familiar book. "Mizuki-san," Naruto called out to the silver-haired man, catching his attention. The older man's clone had been interrogated, but finally he was 'executed' three days ago and his body burned. Once that happened, Naruto could let the chakra holding the clone together disperse with nobody the wiser, Mizuki being officially dead.

"Hmm, what is it?" Mizuki asked, though a tiny part of him was still reading over the attention of Kachu and Kaen, _Oh yes you tricky kitsune you!_

Naruto narrowed his eyes, detecting Mizuki still wasn't paying full attention, but decided that it was sufficient that he had the majority of his attention focused on Naruto. "My assigned sensei is a man named Hatake Kakashi." At that, Mizuki's face, previously pointed down at a 15 degree angle to look at the illustrations of his Icha Icha novel, immediately shot up to look straight at Naruto. "I already know full well of his reputation, and habits, but I would like to hear his psyche profile for his genin tests."

Mizuki strummed his lips with his index finger as he voiced his thoughts aloud, "Interesting, very interesting." Setting his book down, he leaned back into the seat of the couch. "From what I know, Hatake has never passed a team. However, the academy usually got reports back from each of the senseis who failed their teams, as several of the failed genin will retake their final school year to improve, and we always need feedback to know how to improve our curriculum." Of course, unless Naruto was in the class or coming up to that class, in which case the administrators would do their best to tear everything apart to make sure he failed, which was why the last few years had had an unusually low number of successful graduates, with only three teams passing the second test from Mizuki's last class out of nine.

"Hatake prizes teamwork above all else, but he uses a special test called the bell test, in which he'll have two bells. The people who can retrieve a bell pass, while those who don't must go back to the academy." Here, Mizuki shrugged his shoulders. "At least, that's how he says it works, but it's a deception thing, as he's trying to cause dissension between the three genin, and see who will put their differences aside and work together. Personally, I think it's a horrible test simply because it's very rare that we get a team that clicks in personality as soon as they're put together, as we work on how their skills complement, not their personalities. Kakashi just exacerbates the situation by splitting them apart before they've had any real chance to mold a sense of camraderie."

"Hmmm..." Naruto hummed to himself, thinking. "I'd like to say I have a plan, but I really don't, considering I have the most dysfunctional team ever - Suckura Haruno and Sasuke Uchiha." It was a bit juvenile to insult Sakura like that, but he really thought she deserved it. Meanwhile, Mizuki just groaned once he realized how horrible of a team setup that would be. "Thankfully, Kakashi will probably be forced to pass us anyways just because Uchiha is on the team, so he'll probably take the slightest hint of teamwork and use it to pass us."

Mizuki sighed at Naruto's analogy. That it was true was something he disliked, and the corruption that made it possible was why he had joined the Akatsuki. Naruto, seeing the conversation was over, left the lounge for Saisei's room, getting ready to play with the lovable little redheaded kitsune child who always cheered his day up. He would later begin to prepare for the next day.

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**Ok, so maybe I lied last chapter about doing the bell test here, mainly because the length of my scenes get away on me. Oh well, at least the whole of the bell test will be in the next chapter.**

**Again, plz review. And comment on the biting sarcasm and wit I come up with sometimes!**

**Little cameo in this chapter that won't be picked up on until I manage to get the opening chapter of **_**Flame and Vortex**_** out.**


	5. Unnatural Combat

**Chapter Five - "The Unnatural Combat"**

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**The actual plays the titles correspond to don't really have much to do with the plot, but the titles give a fairly decent description.**

**I've gotten some nice feedback on the Hinata bash. Neat. It's all entirely like what happens in canon, just a very different viewpoint of things from somebody who absolutely loathes that kind of personality and person.**

**I'm a bit disappointed though nobody has yet commented on my biting wit on some parts yet - such as the 'alternate universe' Itachi comment at the beginning of last chapter, Kakashi's comment about Sakura's blushing, the 'spymaster' Jiraiya's inability to actually, you know, gather information, etc. You'll see a few lines in this chapter as well.  
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**Again, please Review!**

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Crickets chirped and cardinals cheeped as the fading blue-black of night harkened the coming of dawn. In one training ground in the Village Hidden in the Leaves, a plains area with clumps of trees, with part of the perimeter made up by a river, there stood two young teenagers just coming into adulthood. Unfortunately for the both of them, they had dragged themselves out of bed at an ungodly time one hour earlier, and neither were in the mood to do anything.

"Cha! Where are those two!" Sakura shouted in righteous fury, letting some of her anger loose by punching the air, before collapsing against a tree. "Naruto-baka I could expect it of, but Kakashi-sensei should've been here half an hour ago!" Briefly, her stomach rumbled, and she put her arms in front of her knees to chase off some of the hunger.

Sasuke let out a brief "Hn" in agreement. However, unlike Sakura, he actually had common sense, and had thought to eat a breakfast beforehand; albeit a light one, expecting Kakashi to show up on time. He had asked his mother Mikoto what she knew of Kakashi. She didn't know much about him personally, but had told him the story of Uchiha Obito and how he had, with half of his body crushed, had given up his remaining Sharingan eye to his teammate, who only a half hour earlier lost his own left eye in a sword swipe from an Iwa-nin. So his teacher had the Sharingan in his left eye socket. Now he was beginning to understand why Hatake Kakashi was chosen to be his teacher - although he had had the Sharingan for over half a year now, the few remaining adults left in the Uchiha Clan who had the Sharingan either had never been in the ninja force or long retired, working in the Military Police Force now.

But that didn't explain why Hatake was so late. Slowly, however, Sasuke had begun to recall the previous day, in which Kakashi had offered no excuse for why he had been so late when he showed up, and dodged answering Naruto's question. Chronic laziness, perhaps? Sasuke certainly didn't hope so. It wouldn't do well if his sensei never taught him anything just because he didn't feel like it. That beside, his sanity couldn't tolerate a couple of hours of Sakura thinking he was even going to give her a chance, EVER, before Kakashi showed up, every day. Seriously, did that girl ever shut up?

He had stretched earlier before coming here, but at the rate that Kakashi was taking, his muscles would probably cool down before the grey-haired Sharingan-wielder got here. Naruto must've been fairly perceptive and asked around a bit if he wasn't here yet; either that, or he decided to drop out, which Sasuke prayed he didn't. Sighing, the onyx-eyed Uchiha dropped down, and began his stretching with his legs, while assigning a top priority to his mental list - if Kakashi turned out to be chronically late, he should buy earplugs for whenever he came early so he wouldn't have to hear Sakura.

---

Naruto surveyed his two teammates. They were leagues below him, but he had never gotten this far by underestimating the greatest enemy of them all - the village of Konoha. So far, Sakura was living up to his impressions by alternating between doing nothing and trying to talk Sasuke's ear off (with the occasional cursing at their tardy sensei and Naruto himself).

Sasuke, however little Naruto thought of him, was still a good shinobi, if a little too arrogant, aggressive and prone to rushing into situations. He had a good physique, above average chakra reserves, and a recently activated bloodline that he didn't depend too much on (unlike the Hyuga, which, if Naruto thought about it, was worth a thought if the Akatsuki ever resorted to chemical or biological warfare). Most importantly, aside from being prone to hastiness, Sasuke had a good head on his shoulders.

Most importantly, Sasuke was the prodigal child of the Uchiha, somebody who large swaths of Konoha had placed their hopes on as the shining beacon of the future generation. Every mission C-Class and above that Sasuke completed would bolster his reputation. Every spar he had that was publically shown would spread rumours of his increasing skill. With each passing day, his prestige would become greater and greater. Eight months from now, the pressure would be on Kakashi to put Team 7 in the Chunin Exams when it came to Konoha. Naruto might be weak to the public eye right now, but he would slowly but surely let out his skill, bit by bit, so that Kakashi would feel more assured over putting his team in the exams.

And if Sasuke were to do well in the Chunin Exam finals, only to have his light snuffed out shortly thereafter? Naruto smirked. Morale would drop. People would riot, demand revenge. If there was nothing they could turn their revenge on, then they would turn inwardly, destroy themselves. A freak training accident, perhaps? Or maybe an aneurysm bursting that no medic-nin managed to catch during a standard catch-up? Dear Mikoto-hime would be distraught, and the senior members of the MPF, seeing their pride and joy die a meaningless death, would begin to go home early, skim over their documents, and lose all passion for their work, allowing corruption to seep in and weaken Konoha. Thus was one of the many things that Naruto could manipulate and do from within in Konoha.

Suddenly, Naruto sensed an incoming chakra presence. That would be Kakashi-sensei, likely to be here within the next ten minutes. Naruto didn't wish to be later than his sensei (after all, he could always taunt Sakura about how he was actually early in relevance to their sensei), so he got up and started walking towards the duo.

---

"Naruto-baka! Why are you so LATE?!" Sakura yelled out at the yellow-haired boy. Sakura was peeved. First, she had gotten up at 3am in the morning, needing to do her hair and her nails up before coming over here, without even eating breakfast. Then, she had walked over here, dreading the survival training Kakashi-sensei had talked about...only for him not to even be there. On top of that, that idiot Naruto wasn't present either! Even worse, Sasuke kept rejecting her pleas for a date with him, and wouldn't listen to her while she tried to initiate a conversation with him by talking about every subject she could think of, starting off with the relevant (talking about the team schematics) to the irrelevant (what she had for supper last night).

"Hmmm...Kakashi-sensei isn't here yet, Haruno," Naruto replied blandly, looking over his shoulder to emphasise the lack of the older man. "I think that instead of me being late, you're merely early."

Sakura couldn't take it anymore. She was hungry, she was exhausted, her true love was rejecting her over and over again, and now she had to deal with a smartass! Her flames of fury lit up again, she managed to find the energy to send a punch soaring at Naruto, who merely caught her fist in his hand again.

Thus did Kakashi Hatake walk into a scene that was a repeat of the one he first witnessed the day before. "Hmmm..." he said, frustrated, "Third impressions...I don't like you."

---

After Sakura had freed her hand from Naruto's grasp, Kakashi took them over to three wooden poles in the middle of the field. Placing three brown bags and an alarm clock on top of the poles, the last Hatake turned around and faced his three possible students. "Alright, this clock is set for noon. Now," Here, he grabbed two bells from his vest pocket and attached them by a string to his belt, "The point of this test is for each of you to retrieve a bell from me by that time." He added an eye-smile for extra caution - unnerving graduates even before he got down to the real details was always fun.

"But sensei, there's only two bells!" Ah, the pink-haired brains of the team spoke. Seriously, this was the smartest kunoichi in the academy? Supposedly, she was really good at her tests, but Kakashi knew quite well that most of it depended on memorization than anything else. When she was actually able to apply knowledge to real-life situations, then he would be impressed; a better person would have instead of observing it, gone off to probe the situation and ask a question, such as 'Why are there only two bells for a team of three?'

"That's quite simple," Kakashi responded. "Whoever gets a bell will fully become a genin. Whoever doesn't will be sent back to the academy!" The crestfallen look on the kunoichi's face was enough to amuse him, and he had had enough of his own fangirls back in his day that he could imagine the thoughts running through her head. '_I can't fail or else Sasuke will never realize his true love in me!' _Looking over at Naruto and Sasuke, he saw two determined expressions plastered on their faces, lit by the fires that had been fanned by years of hard work. '_I won't lose!_'

_Hmm,_ Kakashi thought, _even if they will be troublesome students, they should still be good to work with_. It was too bad that he now had no option whatsoever to fail this team. The night before, the Sandaime Hokage had called him into his office, and given him some disturbing news.

***Flashback - The Night Before, Hokage's Office***

"Orochimaru has what?!" Kakashi was plastered by the news that Sarutobi had just delivered.

"Indeed," Sarutobi said grim-faced, taking out his pipe, and extinguishing it - now wasn't the time for sinful old habits. "You may have heard that Mizuki, who was Umino Iruka's classroom assistant, was recently caught trying to steal the Forbidden Scroll. Once we started interrogating him, we learned that Orochimaru is planning on invading Konoha during the Chunin Exams, using his Oto Village along with Iwa." Here, he leaned inwards on his desk, chin on his hands. "As such, I am ordering the new jonin-senseis to be a lot more lenient with their personal genin exams. We normally only fail about 30% of new teams, but about half that total is still workable. Eight months from now we will need our strength. More importantly, however, we need to have a strong showing at the Chunin exam finals to prove after the battle that we are still very strong, and have lots of talent."

"I...see" was all Kakashi had to say, eye downcast. Brightening up slightly, he ventured a question forth. "What happened to Mizuki?"

Sarutobi looked peeved at the mention of the treacherous schoolteacher. "Mizuki was a grunt, it seemed. How he even was trusted with the knowledge of the invasion when he would do something as hazardous as steal the Forbidden Scroll is beyond me. What scares me is that if it weren't for me barging in on Naruto when he was in the process of stealing the Scroll, however, we wouldn't have known it was gone until I went to check up on it. That's another thing you should know - your third pupil knows the Kage Bunshin now. We interrogated Mizuki for about a week, then executed him and burned the corpse."

"Very well." Kakashi said. "However, my genin team looks to be extremely dysfunctional. Breaking Sasuke out of his revenge shtick will take a great deal of my time alone. However, the Haruno girl will also need to lose her fangirl obsession, and dealing with Uzumaki will be its own problem in itself with how to approach and train him."

Sarutobi grabbed for the phantom sensation of the pipe in his mouth, only to restrain his hand. He would need to get back to his personal training grounds to get back in shape for his inevitable showdown with Orochimaru. His eyes narrowed. "You don't need to worry much about Naruto. Just make sure that he has enough to survive the Chunin Exams and we'll take it from there on out. If there's any other questions?" Kakashi shook his head. "Dismissed!"

"Hai, Hokage-sama!" Kakashi responded, left hand at his chest, palm down in a salute, before he left the room.

***Flashback end***

So that was the way of things. Normally by now he would have driven a wedge so far in between the teammate potentials that they would be completely averse to working apart. He was still trying, but not to the same extent - they would pass anyways, so it wouldn't do for them to be disgruntled by burning bridges during this genin test.

"Now, if there's nothing else," Kakashi eye-smiled, "When I say go, come at me with everything you've got, as if you're intending to kill me."

Sakura gasped, and quickly started chattering again. "But Kakashi-sensei, it might be dangerous! We could hurt you!"

"Right..." was all Kakashi had to say. _She thinks that she, a newly graduated genin, could hurt an elite Jonin who's been doing this for twenty years?_ "In any case...go!"

Immediately, two clouds of dust formed around the plains, leaving Kakashi and his blond genin behind. "Hmm..." Kakashi observed, "You're a little off."

Contrary to his expectations, Kakashi's goading didn't provoke Naruto in the slightest, as the blonde was quick to retort, "The only thing that's off here is your hair color. What are you, sixty years old with that grey hair?" Smirking a bit at the tic that appeared on Kakahi's forehead and his instinctual reply of "It's silver!", Naruto continued on, "Besides, I highly doubt that you don't know where Sasuke and Sakura are. Sasuke's hiding in the bushes three'o'clock of me about thirty meters distance, while Sakura is six'o'clock of me." Ignoring Kakashi's slight gaping at how good at sensing his comrades the 'dead last' was, Naruto proceeded to lay down his conclusions. "If I, a newly graduated genin can sense them, then I'm sure you, a jonin, can. So there's no real point in trying to hide."

_Interesting kid_, _to have figured that all out_, thought Kakashi. He heard the rustle of leaves to the side as Sasuke moved spots, having been outed by Naruto. "Well then, why aren't you hiding? I heard you could escape from ANBU at the height of your pranks."

Naruto shook his head. "I know full well that the only reason I managed to keep ahead of them for hours on end was because they couldn't attack or cripple me."

Enjoying the little verbal wargame they had going on, Kakashi retorted, "Then what are you planning on doing? By the same token, you, a newly graduated genin, don't stand a chance against me in a straight-up taijutsu fight, if that's what you're planning on." Inwardly, Kakashi was beginning to analyze the situation. How had Naruto been put in as the dead last if he was this perceptive? From what he read of Naruto's file, he began to piece together the situation: Naruto probably had hidden some of his skill, though it looked like he was still not quite as strong as Sasuke. He had probably failed the genin test simply because of his inability to use a regular Bunshin rather than any overall lack of talent.

"That's quite simple...there's more to this test than what you're letting on, isn't there?"

Kakashi allowed his one eye to widen ever so slightly, before narrowing it again. "And what makes you so sure about that?"

"Why, that's simple," Naruto said, baring his white teeth, his fangs in particular. "No two-man genin team has ever been formed from the get-go unless there isn't enough genin to form a three-man team. It means that we will have to WORK TOGETHER!"

As if the last two words were a trigger, several kunai flew down out of a nearby tree at Kakashi. The scarecrow-like man immediately performed a Kawarimi with a nearby log to dodge the kunai, only to have to fend off the sudden appearance of three Narutos. Looking over, Kakashi couldn't see Naruto where he was originally standing, so he couldn't use any fatal moves if one of the three Narutos was the real one. Even more annoyingly, Naruto appeared to have experimented with the Kage Bunshin, and the two or three Bunshins were chakra reinforced to the point that a single non-fatal hit wouldn't destroy it.

He had been caught off guard by the sudden ambush from two fronts, too, and slowly but surely he was being herded back. With a swift kick to the solar plexus, he finally managed to cause a Kage Bunshin to disperse up in smoke, only to hear a cry of "**Katon: G****ōkakyu no Jutsu**" from behind him. Sidestepping another attack, his eye widened as he saw Sasuke, Sharingan eyes activated, coming up on him with the seals for the Uchiha Clan's signature technique formed, as the black-haired avenger breathed out a ball of fire. _Interesting, a genin who has enough chakra to use that attack_. Of course, it wasn't as if a genin couldn't have that much chakra - he himself had been barely older than Sasuke was now when he had first managed to use his own Chidori, and of course Naruto seemed to be a chakra tank, a likely side effect of having the Kyuubi no Kitsune sealed in his navel. He certainly wasn't going to think anything absurd like 'Impossible! A genin shouldn't have that much chakra!' in response to a basic Katon jutsu.

Thinking fast, Kakashi grabbed one of what he was positive were both Naruto Kage Bunshins and threw it into the path of the fireball, causing it to vanish in smoke. Sasuke continued his charge straight forward while the lone Kage Bunshin tried to double-team Kakashi, and the two boys alternated kicks and punches at their sensei - it was mainly Sasuke who did the work, as he was the real deal and had the Sharingan, but the Kage Bunshin helped distract the silver-haired older man a bit. Kakashi had had enough by now, but was pleased at the coordinated show of teamwork. Grabbing both boys by their ankle, he threw them back to grab some breathing room. As he expected, the Naruto he threw dispersed in smoke, but another one leaped down from a nearby tree - this one was probably the real one.

The two orphans began to bend their knees, ready for another charge into the fray, but Kakashi held his hands up in a universal peace gesture, and ended the fight. "Mah, mah, the fight's over. Sakura, you can come out now," Peering into two separate pairs of eyes with his lone normal eye, he began to explain, as a pinkette came out of the background to huddle into the group. "As you guessed earlier, Naruto, the test was that of teamwork. You could also say that it was also looking underneath the underneath to realize that you needed to use teamwork, and then putting it into action. But let me ask you, how did you put the plan together?"

Naruto was the one to speak up first. "I'm an orphan by birth," Here, both Kakashi and Sasuke had slight flinches - while one had been orphaned at a young age, he at least knew who his parents were, and had known the both of them for some time, while the other felt like he had been completely orphaned some days as a result of losing both his father as well as a large portion of his family; this was in comparison to Naruto who had professed that he never knew who his parents were, "That tends to make me a street rat at times, and as a street rat I know how important information is. You use the same test over and over again, eventually someone is going to get it."

_Ah, so that explains how he seemed to know to ask whether I was going to be late_, Kakashi thought to himself. "And what about you, Sasuke?"

Sasuke was standing up, so he kept his arms down as opposed to moving into a brooding pose. "People can consider me arrogant, but I can listen to logic. The dobe over there sent one of his clones over to me while distracting Sakura and explained it to me, and it made sense. You actually using the test he described just confirmed that we would have to work together."

Kakashi just eye-smiled in response. _Well, at least they can work together if it comes down to the wire._ "Speaking of Sakura, why didn't you bring her into the fold?"

Naruto spoke up again. "Sometimes, the best teamwork somebody can do is just to sit out. Sakura is too obsessed over the teme and hates my guts too much to be able to work effectively, and she lacks the stamina to do much of anything."

Sakura didn't take well to what Naruto said, and she readied her fist to punch him, only for him to dodge. Kakashi just sweatdropped. _Buuut, there's still a lot of work to be done here. _"Well then, your relations still need to be ironed out, but I'm glad to say that Team 7 is now official. We'll be meeting here every weekday at 7am and doing some exercises, and then doing a couple of missions after lunch, after which we'll call it a day. I'll be bringing you each individual material that I expect you to read on the weekends, and on Saturday I'll privately tutor each of you in areas I think you need, and alternate between team members each Saturday. That said, who had breakfast today?" Seeing Naruto and Sasuke both raise their hands, Kakashi eye-smiled. "In that case, Sakura, I'll give you one of the bentos, while I take the other."

And so the discussion about the team went on for the next couple of hours. Despite the friction between the teammates, Kakashi thought he had a lot of potential to work with, and was sure that his team would be able to go far. Little did he know that this four-man iteration of Team 7 would only last three months.

---

As night fell, Naruto looked at two missives on his desk that he had recently received through the communications network that was the lifeblood of the Akatsuki. One was long and detailed, a list of things that Yahiko-sama requested him to do during his time on the genin team of Hatake Kakashi. The other was a single line long, in response to his reports on Sasuke's mental instability.

_You have my permission to kill my brother if he defects._

It was signed 'Uchiha Itachi, Prince of the Ravens'.

Naruto kicked back in his chair, and let out a sigh. Itachi certainly hadn't made it quite that easy when he joined the organization - he had demanded that they let Sasuke live through whatever actions they made against the Leaf. It was something they had complied with, as the services of the elder son of Fugaku were invaluable. However, Itachi was still a man of the clan, and he valued honour and integrity above all else. If Sasuke betrayed his sworn loyalty to the Leaf, then he in effect forsook the honour of the Uchiha, and so Naruto or another Akatsuki member could hunt him down.

What tickled his funny bone was that some members of Konoha's council actually were planning for something similar to happen. Akatsuki had a mole so deep in the council that they would never realize there was a spy until it was too late, but what he reported was disturbing: when the genin team placements were originally reported, parts of the council protested, but later backed off. It was not due to their unwillingness to displease the Sandaime Hokage. No, rather, somebody there knew of the Mangekyou Sharingan and what it required to activate it, and had managed to obtain classified reports of the Uchiha Massacre, where Itachi had told Sasuke all about the Mangekyou, and what it required.

So, Naruto was being set-up with the Team 7 assignment. He was to become the revenge-driven psychopath's closest friend, and then within a year or two, he might be 'accidentally' killed by friendly fire on a mission, or perhaps even disappear. Thus would the Kyuubi brat disappear underneath the dirty rug that hid all of Konoha's dark secrets.

Naruto gritted his teeth. He had endured hatred from this village for twelve years. He wouldn't let them bring him down. It would be who would bring Konoha down in the end.

---

**I'm not a big fan of having a major in-universe change and not having it really affect anything; that's why Sasuke actually HAS the Sharingan now, because the small handful of Uchiha adults with Sharingan living affects that.**

**A lot of the early chapters are hilarious when I'm rereading them, particularly Kakashi's "Impossible! A genin shouldn't have that much chakra!" to Sasuke's Katon: Gokakkyou, and 220 chapters later, while still a genin, Sasuke manages to do three Chidoris in a day.**

**Genin bell test was painful to write (that section took like four days while everything else I got done the first day), and it's probably a pain to read as well I'm betting. Kakashi gave up the test fairly quickly as a result of two things - one, he was ordered to pass the team by the Sandaime, and he saw that Sasuke and Naruto were able to put things aside for a common goal, with the friction between the two being the biggest possible detriment for the team. Two, again I didn't like writing this very much, so I tried ending it as quickly as possible.**

**While I'm trying to write Naruto's teammates in a negative light for Naruto's views, I'm not going to actually bash them. Sasuke listens to Naruto over the test because it makes sense - he's not going to ignore logic just like that. As for Sakura, well, I'll write her how I want because she pretty much IS useless until Part II.**

**Regarding Itachi's signature - I like to think that summoners get to actually have some sort of fancy title, like Jiraiya's 'Toad Sage' title as a sage of the toads. **

**And now, out of eighteen members of the Akatsuki Konoha, we know who or of who nine are: Naruto, Kabuto, Izumo and Kotetsu (Izumo's appearance is described in Chapter 2, and there's no way I would split apart the comic relief duo), Mizuki, a Hyuga branch member (mentioned in chapter 3), an adult Uchiha (mentioned in chapter 4), a male adult Yamanaka (the blond mentioned in chapter 2), and a member of Konoha's council.**

**In a non-story related issue, I came up with a recent idea that I'm NOT adding onto my idea list: what if Konohamaru was the one who the Kyuubi was sealed into? If the Yondaime does the sealing, the Sandaime is more likely to raise him since Ko' will actually be blood related. If the Sandaime does the sealing, then we know at least Asuma is alive out of the Sarutobis (though we have no info on Ko's parents or Sandaime's wife).**

**Don't forget, please review! I'm getting a bit of acceleration here with reviews, but it's always heartening to get more and more reviews per chapter as time passes on. I have a general idea of events and some specifics here and there, but if you have any ideas, feel free to submit them.**


	6. Through Seas and Storms

**Chapter Six - Through Seas and Storms  
**

**---**

**Is there any actual Naruto fanfic with a plot similar to this yet? It was through a fairly convoluted combination of ideas (mentioned at the end of Chapter 2) that I came up with this, but I'd like to think it's really original overall.**

**I also lol all the hate over my Hinata bash.**

**---**

Two and a half months had passed since Team 7 was formed. In the beginning, Kakashi gave Naruto and Sasuke some scrolls to use for training regiments while he focused on trying to either break Sakura out of her fangirl obsession or convince her to quit being a ninja. However, while he found some success in that avenue, he still encountered a great deal of difficulty. Once he got her out of the habit of punching Naruto at almost every occasion and losing focus on everything else to pay attention to Sasuke, he moved on.

Kakashi had also tried coaxing Naruto into wearing less distinctive clothing, something to which the formerly orange-clad boy took to surprisingly chipper. Naruto had just been waiting for an excuse to get out of his burnt-orange jumpsuit, and saying 'My sensei advised me to' was a good excuse as opposed to 'I realised on my own how ridiculous wearing orange was and decided to change'.

Sasuke had managed to upgrade both of his Sharingan eyes to two tomoes, but was convinced by Kakashi to not use his Sharingan too often - a spar in which Sasuke couldn't even touch Kakashi with his eyes activated showed the self-proclaimed avenger that he needed to train his body up to sync with his eyes.

Overall, when he took an objective look at his team, Kakashi thought it was still a mess, but less of a mess than it had been. Still, he wished that whoever had organized the team rosters in the first place had thought to not put together such a dysfunctional team in the first place. So much could have been avoided if either Naruto or Sakura were rotated out with one a genin from one of the other new teams.

---

D-Rank missions were a pain for Naruto. While he could spam Kage Bunshin and get some of the more labour intensive jobs done fairly quickly, the clients that Team 7 worked for tended to know of his (supposed) status as the vessel of the Kyuubi, and he often felt the heavy stare of glaring eyes settling on his back.

It reminded him of a small chat he had with the silver-haired Yakushi a year ago.

***Flashback - One Year Before, Akatsuki Konoha's Underground Chamber***

Several members of the Akatsuki had ventured forth from various parts of the city, past ANBU patrols and other security to make it down into the underground chamber. The purpose of the meeting was a general annual meet, to reaffirm the bonds of the brotherhood and to review the previous year and look to planned happenstance in the next year.

The main portion of the meeting was over, and now the members had broken down into various cliques, some having casual chats, some off on their own musing over their own thoughts. Naruto, Kabuto and a couple of other members were off in their own group.

Kabuto had struck a particularly philosophizing tone in the conversation, leaned forward, arms on his knees. "Do you ever wonder what you would do if you could travel back in time?"

The other two had given fairly generic answers; the first said that he would have worked harder in the academy, while the second said she would have taken the chance to save a loved one that she had lost a few years back.

Naruto's answer startled the other three; not with why he said it - after all, they could easily understand the reasoning behind it. No, it was the fiery passion that danced in his sea-blue eyes when he answered, "I would go back in time to the day when I was born. When the Yondaime would try to take me out to the battlefield, I would struggle in his hands, and do my damndest to either crawl out of his grasp or bite his fingers when he tried to summon the Shinigami. See if that sort of omen of a newborn baby trying to run away isn't enough to warn him that he's damning an innocent soul to darkness."

***Flashback End***

---

Naruto was brooding to himself as Team 7 made their way to the Hokage Tower, midway through the day already. The chunins that helped sort out the missions had finally given him word of two C-Class missions going out of Fire Country that should both almost take a month. A month out of Konoha in which anything could happen.

In fact, he had already come up with courses of actions that would be set into motion depending on which of the two C-Class missions that his team would get. He would request a C-Class mission when his team finally made it up to the missions assignment office, and with any sort of luck he would get it, whether he had to be calm or polite, or act up with his usual clown-like antics. Thereafter, he would send a scroll off to Ame, where one of the leaders of the rebellion would send orders to Akatsuki agents to set-up an ambush against Team 7. It was just his luck that he managed to get the mission heading to Wave, a supposed escort mission back home by a man who was supervising the building of a bridge that would link Keiyo Island to the mainland, as opposed to a diplomatic mission to Kusagakure.

---

Tazuna was practically telegramming his nervousness and anxiety in as they walked down the beaten dirt path that led from northern Fire Country down southwest into Wave Country (seriously, Fire Country had decent roads for internal connections between cities and villages, but they had crap for walking to other countries. What was up with that?, was but one of the wavelengths that occupied Naruto's mind at the time). What made the situation even more unbearable to Naruto was that _nobody had noticed it_. How had the chunins who manned the missions department and processed Tazuna's request, the Sandaime himself, and Hatake Kakashi, an elite jonin, not managed to notice this? No wonder Konoha was in decline if its ninja couldn't even see through the paltry disguise of drunkenness that Tazuna put up.

And what's more was the mission request itself. Tazuna had come to Konoha for the _sole purpose _(well, primary purpose if you counted him buying sake as a secondary purpose) of hiring shinobi to escort him back to Wave? Really? Naruto just shook his head. It wasn't his problem, so long as the plan went along smoothly.

---

Six days later of walking, Naruto was about ready to tear his hair out. Having hypersensitive senses granted to him as a byproduct of being a jinchuuriki could do that to you - he had to put up with Sakura's constant talking in a high-pitched tone that grated on his ears, and deal with the unkempt state of Tazuna, who positively reeked of sweat and alcohol. Couple that with the stone-cold visage of Sasuke and his accompanying efficiency with speaking the minimum words required in a sentence and a sensei who said nothing but to respond to Sakura's endless inquiries and the occasional giggle while reading his porn, and Naruto was at his wits end for surviving the walking trip. If only this was like a manga or television show where the trip to Wave would only last a couple of chapters or an episode as opposed to the real geographical distance between Konoha and the Fire-Wave border!

It was with a sigh of relief that he finally crossed the border itself, a small sign indicating where one country ended and the other began. So far, so good. Nobody suspected what was about to come up next, and unless Gato had hired somebody who was extremely proficient at Suiton jutsus, he wouldn't have any personal surprises spring up on him.

The gig was up for Tazuna, however, when they got to the small channel of water that separated the mainland of the Elemental Nations from the archipelago of islands that made up Wave Country; in particular, right across from the spot of the coastline Team 7 came to was the largest island in Wave, Keiyo Island, which was the island that Tazuna had been building his bridge to. However, since the bridge had yet to be completed, and the channel was too wide for anybody but the chakra well that was Naruto to water-walk across (not to mention only Kakashi and secretly Naruto knew how to water-walk, and that somebody would have to carry Tazuna cross), they would need to take a boat across.

It was an old-aged friend who Tazuna called a favour in on. "Oi, Raku," Tazuna harkened to his buddy.

Raku, who had been facing his boat that was currently anchored to the shore, turned around at Tazuna's call. Raku was only a simple fisher, but when he saw the four shinobi who had moved in behind Tazuna, he could tell that at least two of them were trained, just by the efficiency of their stances. "Oi, Tazuna! I see you got us some hired help to stop Gato and guard the bridge?"

That was the wrong thing for the fisherman to say as within the space of a second, Tazuna had been spun around, his shoulders suddenly protesting in pain at the grasp that Kakashi had on them. "What!" Kakashi hissed out. "What does he mean, stop Gato?!" Kakashi already knew who Gato was - Gato of Gato Corporation, a conglomerate shipping corporation. Slowly, though, he was beginning to put things together in his head.

Tazuna knew that he couldn't hide things any longer, so he began to stammer out what Kakashi wanted to know as he started sweating fairly hard. "G-Gato! He's the owner of the superbig Gato Corporation. You guys might know the corporation for its shipping empire, but in reality Gato makes his money through smuggling and drugs! In Wave, he's choked off our lifeblood: he brought in his mercenaries and accosted our citizens, taking away our boats and businesses. Without boats, we can't do any fishing past the shore, and without ships, we can't bring in supplies from the mainland." Slowly, Kakashi had begun to let his grip on Tazuna slacken, and Tazuna was down in a groveling position. "Our people are starving. Gato wants my head because I'm the head engineer and architect for the bridge. If we finish it, he will lose his monopoly that he has over our lives and prosperity! Please, shinobi-san, help us! This bridge is our only hope to save Wave!"

Kakashi couldn't help it: Tazuna was doing a damn good job of guilting him, but he wouldn't let it go just like that. Looking around at his three Genin, he outlined the new mission parameters as he saw it. "Tazuna has just revealed new information that has possibly upgraded our mission rating. Originally we were to merely escort our client back to his home: however, a powerful businessman wants Tazuna's head, and he has the money to hire high level mercenaries." He frowned to emphasise just how serious he was being here. "Although I doubt he has monks of any sort, he might have B-Rank nukenins, possibly even A-Rank nukenins, or wandering ronin under his pay. Knowing that, do you still want to go on this mission?"

Kakashi thought he saw a brief flicker of amusement and shock in Naruto's eyes, but when he blinked, that gleam was no longer there. Shoving that aside for later thinking, the copy ninja saw Sasuke nod his head furiously, before moments later Naruto conceded a "Hai, sensei" to make the motion two in favour. Turning to Sakura, he asked her, "And what about you, Sakura?"

---

The pinkette of the trio was a bit nervous. So far on the trip, she had done nothing but really talk and learn a bit about Wave Country, and it had been her, not Tazuna, whose overall lack of stamina had forced them to pitch tents after ten hours of walking every day. Even if Sakura was slowly improving every day with her longevity, she was still nervous about getting into a mission with any real fighting, especially one against other ninjas. She had just now in the face of danger begun to understand that, for all of her prowess at theoretical, practical was what ninjas lived and breathed, and she was a failure at it. Without practical experience, she might as well have been a deadweight on the field.

However, the decision had been made for the cherry blossom when her Sasuke-kun had ardently agreed to continue the mission. She couldn't bear having Sasuke turn his cool hate on her for robbing him of his chance to shine! It was with a bit of reluctance that she nodded her assent, making the decision to continue onwards unanimous amongst the genin.

---

The fisherman Raku watched the proceedings in silence, but when the shinobi had made their decision to continue, he had made his own decision. He wouldn't be a coward and refuse to take them across the river. If they were going to help fight off Gato and his minions, he would pitch in with his own bit, little as it may be. Understanding what Tazuna had come here for, he started to talk. "Alright, everyone. My boat's not much, but she should be sturdy enough to take you over river yonder."

---

Thankfully, the channel wasn't very choppy, as the spring waters were fairly smooth. Even Sakura with her lack of training had at least gone through the ninja training in the shinobi academy that allowed for one to minimize the amount of seasickness their body would feel. Tazuna and Raku were both experiences sailers, so even as civilians, the minimalist rocking of the boat meant nothing to them.

Once Team 7 and Tazuna made it off the boat, they started walking again through a backroad along Keiyo Island. It was a lot less hospitable and a lot more treacherous than the main path, but Tazuna had insisted that few of Gato's men knew about this beat path, so they were taking it so as to duck the roving patrols on the highland.

Speaking of Gato's minions, Kakashi was worried. So far, they hadn't once been intercepted by any minions; he would have thought that Gato would have brought at least one shinobi into his fold. Ronin weren't so bad - usually they had flawed equipment (and Kakashi definitely didn't think Gato the type to pay for better equipment), and they were (usually) honourable, so he wouldn't have to worry about an ambush from ronin.

It was a twitch of motion in the environment ahead of them where there was no breeze that had Kakashi on full-alert. Wasting no time, Kakashi threw his right hand back in a 'stop' sign to his genin team and Tazuna, and started barking out orders. "GET BACK!" Slowly prepping his body by forcing the release of adrenaline to boost his central nervous system, he continued giving out commands. "Team 7, assume Majin formation, Sasuke, you'll be up front." With his genin out of harm's way, he only hoped that whoever Gato had hired would be more intent on taking him out personally, then moving onto Tazuna. Kakashi could easily fight off most ninjas - protecting a civilian client along with a team of greenhorn genin made it a lot more difficult.

Thankfully, luck was on his side today, as his assailant seemed to have tunnel vision only for him. Focusing his senses outwards, Kakashi heard the whistling of a kunai coming for his figure, and managed to duck out of the way with a roll to his left side. Looking to see where the kunai came from, Kakashi couldn't find his enemy. So, either his foe was particularly good at hiding himself that Kakashi could be looking straight at him and not see him, or he had moved without rustling the leaves, crackling the stones mixed amongst the dirt, or leaving a chakra trail behind.

Another whistling sound caught Kakashi's attention, and he barely dodged a barrage of shuriken, as he began to perform the hand seals for a jutsu that would release smoke into the air, which would hopefully obfuscate his opponent's senses by robbing him of sight and smell. Already he was beginning to get nervous - just by the skill his opponent had with projectiles and his ambush situation, Kakashi already had his nemesis pegged at a minimum of low A-Rank.

Finishing off the six-seal combo that made up his smoke bomb jutsu, Kakashi let his chakra burst out in a poof of white smoke; the jutsu being relatively simple, he had no need to pronounce the technique name for the extra focus. Feeling that he had at least a few seconds of safety while his foe tried to decipher his motives, Kakashi promptly went through another series of hand-seals; it was the original variant of a favourite technique of his, the **Doton: Shinj****ū Zanshu no Jutsu**. **Doton: Kager****ō**was extremely flexible, allowing the user to go underground, and was what the **Shinj****ū ****Zanshu** had been built off of. Once under the earth, the user could do almost anything possible within the limits of earth manipulation. While Kakashi could only do a few Doton jutsus, most of those copied from Iwa ninja during the Third Great Shinobi War, he had heard that a Kusa ninja had mastered the **Kager****ō**to a ridiculous extent, to the degree that he was almost completely invisible underground and could move at high speeds.

Feeling for tremors in the earth that would indicate the movement of a mass of something between one hundred twenty pounds to one hundred eighty pounds, the range that most adult shinobi fell into weightwise, Kakashi began to be confused. For whatever reason, there were seven large tremors occuring that he could detect that were not from Team 7 or Tazuna, and each of them indicated a mass of between fifteen to forty pounds. Additionally, there were several dozen small vibrations in the earth that he would almost call microtremors. It was really odd, and unfortunately he was blind sight-wise to the outside world while underground.

He would have to make a calculated risk. While he would loved to be able to figure out the predicament he was currently in, time was of the essence; the more he dilly-dallied, the more the possiblity that his mysterious opponent might go after his genin team. Why oh why had he let them make the decision to continue on? Quickly abandoning thoughts unnecessary to the battle, he moved right underneath the heaviest object, the one that weighed forty pounds. He quickly resurfaced through a use of the **Shinj****ū ****Zanshu**, trying to get in a piercing blow with a kunai before whatever it was had a chance to react.

Kakashi's kunai went through hard wood before glancing off a piece of metal.

Quickly using a **Kawarimi** to make his way out of a swarm of senbon, Kakashi began to pale as he realised just what he was up against. Up in the treetops a man stood in a crouching position, donning a camouflage cloak. He had blond hair that was sun-bleached almost to the point of being white, with his skin showing a golden tan. On either side of him stood a pale clone of the original. It was what both clones and the man were doing that worried Kakashi; although most of their muscles were rigid, their forearms, wrists, and fingers were in constant motion, controlling chakra strings attached to the fingertips. At the opposite end of each fingertip were puppets; some regular sized, while some were much smaller, intended for getting past an opponent's defenses by way of being too small to detect.

Kakashi knew who this man was. He had defected half a decade ago, and was responsible for the death of over a half-dozen Konoha hunter ninjas. As an allied nation, Suna gave Konoha plenty of information on its own traitors, and that was the only reason Kakashi had the information required to have a chance at winning this battle. "Hakko Awai, also known as Shirosuna no Hakko."

The man in various shades of green smiled a grim smile, and his two clones disappeared. Kakashi knew that the feared Shirosuna no Hakko wasn't taking it easy on him; he had no doubts that Hakko had other clones that would take control of the puppets left behind his two dispersed clones. The difference would that they would be to the side and behind him. After all, why hit your opponent from the front only when you can surround him? Hakko saw fit to respond to him, if only to mock him in response. "Sharingan no Kakashi."

Kakashi couldn't help it. He was stuck deep in foreign territory, up against an enemy who had the advantage of knowing the time and place beforehand. His enemy wouldn't tire very quickly, while he would have to be on his toes all battle long. His own feats were well known, while he knew little about his foe. So what if his genin were children? They were still ninja, and they probably heard worse every day.

"Oh, shit."

---

In another reality from the Konoha ninja's own, Uchiha Madara lived past the battle between him and the Shodai Hokage at the Valley of the End, Yahiko died in battle against Hanzo of Ame, and Nagato went through a ritual that allowed him to control six bodies of dead shinobi, taking on the moniker 'Pein'. In that reality, Akasuna no Sasori defected from Sunagakure at the age of 13, although four years later he killed the Sandaime Kazekage, taking his body to turn into a human puppet.. As opposed to this reality, where it was an Iwa-Konoha feud that started the Third Great Shinobi War, there, it was caused by Suna panicking over the sudden disappearance of their Sandaime. Sasori would later join Akatsuki in this reality, and many others.

In several of these realities, Suna's Puppeteering Corps would be devastated by the loss of their greatest puppeteer, and with Chiyo's retirement, the puppeteering art would fall into decline. In other such realities, however, a new puppeteer would rise to greatness in Suna - developing both the field of micropuppetry, which involved puppets smaller than six inches, and macropuppetry, which involved puppets over seven feet tall, Hakko Awai, cousin of the second Ichibi jinchuuriki, would go down in the annals of ninja history. In some variances of the realities that he rose to fame in, Hakko would follow in his predecessor legend's path and defect from Suna. Sometimes, he would join Akatsuki as well. In a few others, he would move against Akatsuki - one notable reality would be when he followed a blonde-haired man who, like him, shared a relation to a jinchuuriki, and became part of an organization known as the GoKanshisha.

However, in this reality, where Akasuna no Sasori stayed in Suna and took office as the Yondaime Kazekage, Hakko Awai's star never really shined - while he still pioneered new designs in puppetry, he was overshadowed by the Yondaime's human puppets. That had been OK with him, and so had being ordered by Sasori to go nuke-nin to sabotage the rest of the Hidden Villages scattered across the Elemental Nations. Although Sasori put Hakko in the books as a low A-Rank nukenin, Hakko was truly more of an upper A-Rank ninja, one who was dangerously close to crossing that treacherous gap that separated the upper A-Ranks and the lower S-Ranks. The reasoning was that hunter nin from other village who encountered Hakko wouldn't expect Hakko to be quite as powerful as he truly was.

And it worked. Once, a group of hunter nin from Iwa, who had had experience with puppeteers in the Third Great Shinobi War, had surrounded Hakko, expecting a tough fight, but one that they could handily win. They were slaughtered to the last man.

Hatake Kakashi knew none of Yahiko's plottings, but he knew that Hakko would have been the next legendary puppeteer of Suna if not for the Yondaime Kazekage. He knew puppeteers could be a dangerous bunch from the stories his father had told him of the Second Great Shinobi War. He had read up on Hakko's entry in the Suna Bingo Book, and knew that if he got hit by even a single projectile launched by a puppet, he could be dead within minutes by the poison. Lastly, because Hakko was a puppeteer, and one of the best, he could control multiple puppets at once, while barely moving around himself, and chakra strings used up little chakra. That was in comparison to Kakashi, who would have to be constantly dodging and moving around during the whole fight, and who had gotten lazy in the last few years with training since he had left ANBU. Kakashi knew that much, and so he summed his thoughts up in two eloquent words.

"Oh, shit."

---

**Neat. I bet you expected Zabuza! Then you were all "huh where's the demon guys", and slowly things began to change from there.**

**This chapter was overall a bit of a toughie to fight. Overall I'm trying to move things at a relatively fast pace for the first little bit because I don't want to bore everyone with an exact rewrite of the same events that you've read in the manga and in countless fanfics (which is why a lot of scenes are skipped), but I still like to provide a bit of detail with the going-ons and add a little deviation from canon (so here Kakashi finally realizes they're over their heads when the boat-owner lets the info on the bridge and Gato loose, and Tazuna doesn't use the 'grandson and daughter will hate Konoha' line but instead pleads for the sake of Wave itsel)). There are also sometimes moments that I want to write in and sometimes the way the story goes it doesn't quite work in well - for example I've had the scene here with Kabuto as an idea since the beginning of the story (whereas the scene in Chapter 4 where Kakashi teases Sakura about her likes, hobbies and dreams being to blush and giggle I wanted to do and it fit perfectly). I also have a problem with really trying to develop characters who I know won't ever really play a big role (ie. Sakura in this story) so I have to force myself sometimes to add her in somewhere. It wasn't really until about an hour before I finished this that things really got a role and I probably wrote about a quarter of it in that time.  
**

**A couple of the 'alternate realities' that are talked about in the Hakko Awai introspective will be the other plots I develop. You will definitely be seeing Hakko in 'Flame and Vortex' whenever I get around to writing anything, and maaaaybe 'Rise of a Kitsune'.' Hakko's 'Shirosuna no Hakko' title also lets me expand a bit on the Narutoverse - I think the 'Akasuna' in 'Akasuna no Sasori' is a title that Sasori received while a part of Suna, so I'm planning to have a 'colored sands' group in Suna who would be the rough equivalent of the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist, where the '___suna no ____' organization would probably have six people, and to receive the title you would have to be one of the strongest ninja in Suna. The title can only be passed on if the original holder renounces it or is killed, so those who defect have to be slain first for the title to be passed on.**

**Hakko's appearance also allows me to spice up the Wave Arc a lot (I would rather have done a new mission altogether but there were complications in plot ideas). Too often people basically rewrite the Wave Arc, with the only notable deviances being that Zabuza and/or Haku live/go to Konoha, or Naruto showing up with a stronger performance. Usually it's 'Team 7 confronts Zabuza, battle takes place after which Haku shows up and takes Zabuza's body away while Kakashi is out unconscious. A couple of weeks later, the time in between which they do the tree climbing exercise and Naruto meets Haku unmasked, the two sides fight again.' Then there seems to be a law of proportions going on in the Wave Arc - if somebody writes in TWO teams going to guard Tazuna instead of one, boom, Zabuza suddenly has a couple of new subordinates. Finally, there are the Wave Arcs that seem to stretch on and on and on without ever ending ('The Dichotomy of Namikaze Naruto' is one good example, which ironically just updated after two years of inactivity, with ANOTHER TWENTY THOUSAND WORDS IN THE WAVE ARC, as well as 'Black Flames Dance in the Wind') because their authors just want to add in more stuff...and more and more and more and more stuff.**

**Believe me, the stuff that happens next chapter won't take you on some hallucination-induced reading adventure, and it won't stretch on for fifteen chapters, but it will be outside the realm of normal. And I would prefer that just because I'm bringing in non-canon non-filler OC nukenins that are powerful doesn't mean that you should suddenly shout out "MARY SUE MARY SUE GARY STU!"**

**That said, with Zabuza and Haku not appearing, I've finally made up my mind on some of the changes from canon as a result of Madara actually dying at the VotE, so I will issue the verdict here: Yagura will still be in power in Kiri and the bloodline wars won't have happened (somebody nameless will be the Sandaime that Madara presumably used to be). I'm of the belief that Madara might have manipulated events in Ame to cause Yahiko's death anyways so it works out that Yahiko survived the battle. For the same reason why there's a number of Uchiha who still live: I highly doubt that Itachi would have been able to kill everyone without Madara's help, so he just killed the troublemakers and coup planners and bailed out. As for why the Kyuubi attacked: a wizard did it (or he just attacked on his own).**

**Finally, some ideas for feedback - for any reviewers, I'd like to bounce an idea off of you, which if I go through it will probably be universal throughout all my Naruto fanfics: specifically on an idea I have about bloodlines.**

**This idea is that EVERYONE in the Narutoverse has a potential bloodline, but few actually activate it. Those who activate a bloodline (ie. the first Hyuuga or the first Uchiha) and have children, their children will have a much easier time activating the bloodline because their parents managed to activate theirs. Siblings who didn't have parents with bloodlines won't necessarily have the same potential bloodlines, which is why the Nidaime Hokage would be heavily aligned with water as opposed to the Shodai who uses Wood, which is a mixture of Earth and Water - but parents who have bloodlines will pass along that specific bloodline to their descendents.**

**What makes the system potentially even more broken is that every person can activate up to three bloodlines: one for a body bloodline (ie. Kaguya's bones), chakra bloodline (ie. Haku's Hyoton) and doujutsu. The three bloodlines aren't necessarily related in properties to each other (so say if Suigetsu's water body form was an actual bloodline and not a result of experimentation, his chakra bloodline wouldn't necessarily be having a much higher alignment to water).**

**Most important will be the triggers to activating your bloodline. Children who had a parent with their bloodline will usually either be able to activate it relatively easily (which I'm fairly sure the Hyuuga can do with their Byakugan), through hard work, life-threatening circumstances (Sasuke and Haku are good examples), and in some cases some siblings will have a heavily dormant bloodline while it will activate automatically for others (Kaguya). For those who need to activate bloodlines on their own, they can do so either through extremely hard work and meditation and experience with chakra, through demon influence, or through sacrifice. The latter two, while quicker and easier, will end up producing weaker bloodlines. For all people, after the first bloodline is activated, the second bloodline will be harder to activate, and the third harder still.**

**If I actually do this, I'll also explain off the Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan under this formula. Madara and Itachi will have activated their MS through sacrifice (killing their best friend). The MS form wouldn't actually be part of the Sharingan doujutsu itself, but instead would be a chakra-based bloodline that works in conjunction with the Sharingan - the Tsukiyomi is the ultimate genjutsu, with genjutsus being done by inserting chakra into the target's body, hence a form of high chakra manipulation. Amaterasu is somewhat the same, as something that's as hot as the sun would probably require heavy concentration, or high chakra manipulation. Itachi's Susano'o and Kakashi's Kamui would probably be explained off in the same manner somehow, along with a little bit of bullshitting.**

**Since Itachi got his MS through sacrifice (killing Shisui), his bloodline is weaker than it might be otherwise - the drawback is that it causes his eyes to go blind. At the same time, however, he can still use the MS abilities, which is why despite being nearly completely blind while fighting Sasuke he can still use Amaterasu to a great degree, and of course his eyes bleeding after using Amaterasu or Tsukiyomi.**

**Madara taking his brother's eyes to replace his own would be considered 'sacrifice' again, and that would grant him his body power - slow aging (as opposed to immortality, which I don't think has actually been suggested in the manga, just longetivity) and the ability to do space-time jutsus (teleportation) without needing to do a jutsu or use fuuinjutsu. While he is fairly powerful, someone who works hard to activate two of three bloodlines could give him a run for his money.**

**In any case, feedback on that please!**

**Aaaand, next chapter, end of the Wave Arc (probably), and an intermission (possibly). **


	7. An Heirloom Lost

**Chapter Eight - "An Heirloom Lost"**

**---**

**In this chapter, we see a neat fight, a bit of description on ninja fighting, and another ninja.**

**---**

_Kakashi's kunai went through hard wood before glancing off a piece of metal._

_Quickly using a Kawarimi to make his way out of a swarm of senbon, Kakashi began to pale as he realised just what he was up against. Up in the treetops a man stood in a crouching position, donning a camouflage cloak. He had blond hair that was sun-bleached almost to the point of being white, with his skin showing a golden tan. On either side of him stood a pale clone of the original. It was what both clones and the man were doing that worried Kakashi; although most of their muscles were rigid, their forearms, wrists, and fingers were in constant motion, controlling chakra strings attached to the fingertips. At the opposite end of each fingertip were puppets; some regular sized, while some were much smaller, intended for getting past an opponent's defenses by way of being too small to detect._

_Kakashi knew who this man was. He had defected half a decade ago, and was responsible for the death of over a half-dozen Konoha hunter ninjas. As an allied nation, Suna gave Konoha plenty of information on its own traitors, and that was the only reason Kakashi had the information required to have a chance at winning this battle. "Hakko Awai, also known as Shirosuna no Hakko."_

_The man in various shades of green smiled a grim smile, and his two clones disappeared. Kakashi knew that the feared Shirosuna no Hakko wasn't taking it easy on him; he had no doubts that Hakko had other clones that would take control of the puppets left behind his two dispersed clones. The difference would that they would be to the side and behind him. After all, why hit your opponent from the front only when you can surround him? Hakko saw fit to respond to him, if only to mock him in response. "Sharingan no Kakashi."_

_Kakashi couldn't help it. He was stuck deep in foreign territory, up against an enemy who had the advantage of knowing the time and place beforehand. His enemy wouldn't tire very quickly, while he would have to be on his toes all battle long. His own feats were well known, while he knew little about his foe. So what if his genin were children? They were still ninja, and they probably heard worse every day._

_"Oh, shit."_

---

Ducking and weaving, Kakashi mentally gave a sigh of relief as he felt the chakra signatures of his genin and Tazuna moving away from the battlefield. Good, at least they wouldn't be caught in the crossfire. A one-sided crossfire, he thought grimly, as he barely escaped another barrage of kunai that smashed into a tree, sending it careening over. Bringing a glove up to his face, he took a deep breath of air while his arm and hand blocked all the debris that had been kicked up by the treefall, ending the motion by finally picking up the hitai-ate that covered his Sharingan eye left to him by his long-dead teammate.

Never mind his puppetry skills. Hakko Awai was damned good at poisons, too. Oh, Kakashi had no doubt that each weapon was laced with a poison of some sort, no matter that he could neither see any trace of color on the poison that laced every projectile, nor could he smell any poison. That made it even worse, because the man who earned the title of the White Sands might have other methods of introducing poison into his system. Usually, airborne poisons would do little to harm him (and the still air meant airborne poison wouldn't be swept off to the direction of his genin team and client): it was a little known fact, but Kakashi's mask doubled as an air filter. However, even air filters would be have a hard time coping if there was too much poison in the air.

Although the Sharingan wasn't on the level of the Byakugan when it came to actually seeing chakra, Kakashi could still see the blue lines that made up the chakra strings of various puppets that were hopping around the battlefield. Following one chakra string to its end, he threw a kunai at what he presumed to be one of Hakko's clones, who dodged the assault. That gave him enough time to put together everything he knew so far.

Puppeteers were a dangerous lot. That was because they had almost infinite stamina - so long as they could keep their opponents away from their real bodies, all they needed to do was channel steady amounts of chakra along the chakra strings to animate their puppets, yet the amount of chakra that was required was mindbogglingly small. A skilled puppeteer who barely had to move would be fresh after five minutes, while his or her opponent would be tired out. The same would go for if a puppeteer utilized clones to control more puppets; the clones didn't require much chakra to do their own thing, so they could keep the fight going on for as long as they needed. At the same time, a prepared puppeteer would have all manners of weaponry on their puppets; beyond the normal projectiles and hand-to-hand weapons, they might also have inscribed seals that could fit any manner of purpose, as well as weapons fit for a saboteur. The only reason he wasn't trying to burrow was because of the possibility there were landmines in the earth.

And Hakko fit that role perfectly. Kakashi had only been battling for a few minutes, and already he had strained the natural flexibility of his body to its limits to keep dodging the countless barrage of projectiles that now littered the forest floor. Every time he tried to press the offense, Shirosuna no Hakko beat him back into a defensive role. It was positively infuriating, but Kakashi knew he couldn't let his anger at the situation get the best of him. He had to stay come, make his way past all the puppets, and take out Hakko directly.

Until Konoha's Copycat ninja could find an opening, however, he would at least try to balance out the battle of attrition. Even if he had dodged countless senbon, kunai and shuriken already, Hakko's puppets couldn't have an unlimited number of weapons, and he had to run out of puppets sometimes. Even if he had many more waiting to be unleashed out of storage scrolls, the slightest lull in the pattern of the puppets and clone puppeteers would give him an opportunity.

Taking a chance, Kakashi grabbed his sharpest kunai in a reverse grip, and leaped at one of the medium-sized puppets, one that was approximately three and a half feet and whose features appeared to have been inspired by an otter. He cut one of the fin-like appendages off, before grabbing one of the loose chakra strings left behind. Leaving no time for the puppeteer at the other end to abandon the puppet, he called his chakra forth, instantly converting it to electricity through the use of raiton elemental manipulation, channelling it through the chakra string into the opposite end. A brief pop alerted him to the dispersion of a clone.

That was at least good news for him. He hadn't really ever fought puppeteers, Suna having been an ally of Konoha during the Third Great Shinobi War, and so he hadn't really ever fought anybody who used chakra strings. He was unsure whether a chakra string would conduct chakra-created electricity or not. Since it did, that meant he could electrocute the real Hakko by coming into contact with a string, and destroy any clones he had by the same process.

The bleach-haired former ninja of Suna seemed to realize that as well, as the frenzy of the puppets began to pick up. No longer just dodging several projectiles, Kakashi suddenly had to start dodging puppets that were coming in for close-combat. With no weapon of his own larger than a kunai, Kakashi had to resort to hand-to-hand combat against the offensive puppets.

Fighting puppets was different from fighting humans - they had no pressure points, they felt no pain, and the joints in their body were kept to a minimum and protected behind metal, making it difficult to mangle a puppet. The progeny of the Hatake family considered using jutsus, but decided against it - doubtlessly each puppet was coated with flame retardent, lightning and water jutsus would do nothing, he knew no wind jutsus of the cutting variety, and earth jutsus could only be used in certain situations. Even his more powerful techniques that could destroy a puppet had to be held back - Hakko still had more puppets, while each use of a jutsu would tire him out more and more as his chakra began to dwindle.

Kakashi managed to make it through three more puppets before he finally got hold of another chakra string - Hakko was cleverly letting the strings loose as soon as one puppet had been rendered helpless, and controlling them from the backside meant Kakashi, who was facing the front of the puppets, couldn't just reach and grab the strings unless he got around the puppet.

Seeing an opportunity to cause a loss of numbers to his opponent's arsenal as seven puppets crowded together to one side of him, Kakashi went through a quick sequence of twelve handseals before hitting the earth with his hands. The earth in front of him opened up, and sucked the puppets into the abyss below. He didn't even get a chance to close the ground back up before his danger senses went haywire, and he rolled out of the way of a stream of flame. His opponent was _insane_ - he had nearly been hit by a flamethrower!

Seconds later, Kakashi was repeating his theory on his opponent's craziness in his head, as one of the micropuppets that he had yet to spot exploded right underneath his feet, sending him sailing.

And so on and on the battle went - while Kakashi, showing why his reputation was well-deserved, managed to occasionally push back his opponent, for the most part, he was being pressed back on the defensive by Shirosuna no Hakko.

---

Sakura was worried as the distinct sound of an explosion reached the group. "Do you think sensei is okay?" she asked to nobody in particular.

Naruto shook his head. "It doesn't matter whether he's okay or not. By the sounds of it sensei is facing off against another powerful ninja. If Kakashi-sensei loses, we're out of luck, if he wins then we live another day." Sakura and Tazuna both looked decidedly off-put as they realized the truth behind his answer, while Sasuke took on a dark glower. Obviously he didn't want to have his life ended

Of course, Naruto knew what he had just said wasn't entirely true. After all, killing off Kakashi was the whole point of coming here. Tazuna's mission was real, but Hakko's appearance in Wave was to stage an ambush against Kakashi, and hopefully kill him, under the pretense of 'being hired by Gato to kill Tazuna'. At the same time, another Akatsuki agent would be instrumental in cleaning up the mess and eliminating Gato, while secretly getting Ame and Suna into the good graces of Wave Country.

Naruto was on guard as he heard a brief flicker of sound from behind him, and shortly thereafter a shadow flew over the group, giving off a small whoosh as the air parted for the mysterious third party. _Well, speak of the devil_, Naruto smirked to himself where Sasuke and Sakura couldn't see, _the cavalry has arrived_. Turning to his teammates, he adopted a worried pose. "I'm worried about that person who just showed up. Let's go see if Kakashi-sensei is alright!"

The kunoichi of the group tried to deter his advance. "But Naruto-baka, Kakashi's in a fight still! Why would we get closer now?!"

Naruto just shook his head. "Sakura, Kakashi-sensei and that puppet-controller guy have been engaged in battle for the last ten minutes. They're dead even in their skills. Once a ninja gets into the A-Rank levels, a single hit is all that's needed to end the battle. Whoever that guy was that just showed up, the speed he was showing was beyond anything I've ever seen! If he's trying to help sensei, the battle will be over by the time we get there. If he's against Kakashi-sensei, sensei will be dead quickly and we'll be hunted down like prey."

His logic was slightly faulty, but Sasuke saw where Naruto was coming from, and nodded, before turning to his obsessed fangirl. "Naruto has a point, Sakura. Let's go." Her crush having spoken, Sakura deferred quickly to him. Tazuna too saw the logic in what the flaxen-haired jinchuuriki had said, and let himself be pulled along their path of travel.

---

Kakashi cursed his luck. Of the battle in courting lady luck's favour between Hakko Awai and himself, he, Kakashi Hatake, Sharingan no Kakashi, had lost.

Oh, sure, he was still standing, and able to fight. But a senbon needle had pierced him in the leg, just above the ankle. Already he could feel his leg beginning to burn up as the poison began its work. In a way, he had to be thankful that at least he got hit in his leg; due to gravity and the method in which the veins in the legs pump blood upwards, he had more time left before the poison set in completely than if he had been hit in his torso or on his arm.

But that brought about the question: what should he do with the time that he had left? He had two options. His main option was to do a kamikaze run and hope he could take out the real Hakko with a powerful jutsu before he succumbed to the poison that the senbon had laced been with. However, he wasn't guaranteed to be able to successfully take out Hakko Awai; even if he did, Gato would most likely have other powerful mercenaries that he would send after Tazuna, and his genin team were too deep into Wave to retreat. In the end, the most he could hope for was to take out a powerful nuke-nin, while he forfeited his life, his genins' lives, and his client's life.

The second option was riskier, and it could save his life if the poison was only as strong as it seemed to be given the relative burn he was feeling in his leg. But he would have to sacrifice something that he valued more than his life to do so.

Kakashi's dilemma was rendered meaningless by a 'twing' sound, following by a high whistle. Looking above, his Sharingan managed to track an arrow of all things fly through the air, and strike one of Hakko's animal-inspired puppets, before exploding, sending shrapnel in all directions (to which Kakashi ducked out of the way). Looking back up, he saw the thin fumes of futon chakra that had been left behind by the arrow's flight, and began to pale. There was only one man in the Elemental Nations that could use elemental manipulation with a bow and arrow. If he found it convenient, the Kumo ninja could easily kill Kakashi.

"Aoi Konpeki," was all that Kakashi could whisper, before his left leg gave out as the poison began to spread, and his vision began to narrow. As several more arrows shot through the forest, blowing up more puppets, Kakashi's other leg dropped, bringing him to his knees. Dimly, he heard his genin team come up from behind him, invoking a sense of horror in him. It was insanity for them to be in the vicinity of an A-Rank nukenin, but an A-Rank nukenin and another A-Rank ninja from a hostile nation was even worse.

Slowly, he heard somebody drop to the ground beside him, and Kakashi turned his head slowly. The maroon-haired blue-eyed man who he immediately identified as Aoi Konpeki stood stout and strong, taller than Kakashi himself was, easily eclipsing six feet in height. His loyalty to Kumogakure was indicated by a hitai-ate that he wore around his neck, its symbol adorning the metal plate. Aoi also held a varnished wooden bow in his left hand, a thing of beauty that was almost as tall as he was. The man opened his mouth to speak. "You have no need to worry, Hatake Kakashi." The man was truly soft-spoken, but one nevertheless could tell that his will was strong. "Even when you die, I have no intentions to kill your students." Here, his eyes narrowed. "Konoha will owe us if its Uchiha heir manages to make it home safe. Besides that, I'm here to assassinate Gato, so even if it wasn't part of my original mission, I still intend to keep your bridge builder safe."

That seemed to be all that Aoi could say, as Hakko was unlikely to let his enemies simply chat to each other in the heat of battle. Aoi took the end of the conversation to jump into the trees, hiding in the foliage of the trees. Meanwhile, Sakura had gasped behind Kakashi at Aoi's words; the Kumo ninja had indicated that Kakashi was about to die. At the same time, Naruto had moved forward, and was now dragging Kakashi out of the warzone, while crying, "Kakashi-sensei! Please! Don't die on us!"

In true Kakashi fashion, the man of a thousand jutsus just eye-smiled, no longer able to feel anything below the waist. "Don't worry, my little genins, I won't die so simply here." Reaching his hands up to his face, he took a deep breath, and put up every mental barrier and fortitude that he had built up against pain since the day he was first trained as a ninja. With a deep gasp, he thrust his left hand into his left eye socket, eliciting a gasp from his genins and Tazuna, before digging out his Sharingan eye, his teammate Obito's last gift to him before his death. Closing himself off from the torrent of emotions that threatened to burst forth, he crushed the Sharingan eye in his hand, before he began to choke out a sob, tears erupting forth from his lone remaining eye.

Ignoring the aghast look on Sasuke's face at his sensei destroying a Sharingan eye, Kakashi brought his clean right hand up to his facemask, and rolled it down to show his cheeks. Sakura was now vomiting at Kakashi's most recent action; with Tazuna occupied in his prayers to his kami that they make it out of the situation alive and Sasuke distraught over what Kakashi had just done, Naruto was the only one to notice the spiral on Kakashi's face made up of various sealing characters. It was a storage seal that was inscribed on Kakashi's face. His eyes narrowed - just what was Kakashi doing, and what was behind that seal?

Kakashi saw Naruto's look of confusion, and saw fit to enlighten him while he channeled chakra to the seal, causing three hypodermic needles to pop out. "Years ago, when I first received my Sharingan eye, I was told that I would have to take medication constantly so my immune system wouldn't reject it." He had already injected the first needle into his jugular vein, and the brown fluid inside was slowly being drained into his bloodstream. "For the most part, my immune system is still strong against environmental factors, but I'm particularly weak against venomous poisons." His first needle empty, he pulled it out, and injected a second needle into an artery just above his poisoned left leg, seeking to fight against the poison at its point of impact. "I was given a powerful drug that would temporarily boost my immune system to hyperactive levels for a short period of time. I was only hit with a single senbon, so there isn't so much poison in my body that it can't be fought off." Finally, he put in the last needle. "However, it would also fight off my Sharingan again, so I had to take it out before that could happen." He tried shrugging, but couldn't summon the motivation to do so. "My body will be weakened too much afterwards for it to accept the Sharingan eye again. I won't let an enemy get a Sharingan eye." He pulled out the last needle, and let it drop to the ground, effectively discarding it. "Sorry Naruto, but you're going to have to take care of me for awhile." He thought he saw a worried look in Naruto's eyes, and passed out happy that at least one student of his cared about him.

---

Contrary to what Kakashi thought, however, Naruto was not worried about _him_. Rather, he was worried about the plan that had just gone to pieces.

_Kuso_, he thought. It had been simple. They were supposed to get a mission to leave Fire Country. Once out of Fire Country, a high-ranking agent in Akatsuki would then ambush the team, and kill off Kakashi. Since they had gone to Wave, Yahiko had called in Hakko Awai to ambush Team 7 and defeat Kakashi; the genins would assume that Gato had hired Hakko to assassinate Tazuna, and there would be no proof to the contrary. When Kakashi was as good as dead, Aoi Konpeki was to step in and chase off Hakko, before going on to kill Gato himself, so that Tazuna could escape unharmed and build his bridge. Later on, once Akatsuki revealed to Wave how they had helped the population out, they could use Wave's good graces to influence trade treaties to economically choke off shinobi villages that refused to see the Akatsuki's way of things and help those who did.

Taking a deep breath, Naruto thought things over again. The plan should still hold for the most part. Even if Kakashi survived, he would still be weak for weeks afterwards, meaning that Aoi would be able to take out Gato uncontested. Right, Kakashi surviving was the only part of the plan that would be changed. Even if he survived, Kakashi had still lost his Sharingan eye - for all that Kakashi had already been a legend even before he had gained the eye from Uchiha Obito, he had grown to become too accustomed to it in fights against high-level opponents, and the loss of the eye would rob him of the photographic memory of the seal sequences for many jutsus, as well as demoralize him. It was still just too bad that he couldn't simply kill Kakashi while he was vulnerable right here and now, but neither him, Aoi, or Konpeki were at all talented with memory sealing or modification, so trying to change Sasuke's or Sakura's memories would be far too risky. No, better to let the scarecrow-man live for now.

Grabbing Kakashi's still form by the shoulders, Naruto began to drag him up and lifted the jonin onto his own back. Naruto might have been only twelve years old, but he still had a strong enough physique to hold up a man twice his age.

**---**

As the sounds of explosion, whistling, and general mayhem disappeared, Sasuke and Naruto were both back on guard again, still in its original Majin formation. Who knew whether the victor was friend or enemy?

When Aoi emerged from the forest, the two kept their wariness: Sasuke, because while he had known Hakko to be an enemy, he had no idea whether Aoi was friend, neutral, or enemy, and Naruto because he had an act to keep up. Aoi himself was non-plussed. "Darn, he got away," was what the quatret heard the Kumo archer mumble.

It was Sakura who broke the awkward silence that resulted, having wiped the hydrochloric acid and vomit off her mouth by then. "Uh, Kumo shinobi-san," she said, and here Aoi's head perked up. "Just what exactly happened?"

Aoi didn't have any qualms in answering. "I'll tell you what happened, that doll-playing bastard got away. I guess I destroyed too many of his toys, so he had to retreat before I got to the real him." Looking past the three genin members of Team 7, he spotted Tazuna. "Are you Tazuna, the bridgebuilder?"

Tazuna had, up until now, been silent since the fight between Hakko and Kakashi had started. Already having one ninja assassin out after him had unnerved him greatly; he couldn't handle having another one hunting for his head. However, he knew that ninjas could usually tell when a common civilian was lying (except for that one time when he managed to pass off an A-Rank guard mission as a C-Rank escort mission...yeah), so he truthfully answered, "Yeah, that's me, Tazuna the super bridgebuilder! Why?"

Aoi had calmed himself down, schooling his emotions and his composure. "The Village Hidden in the Clouds has recently become aware of the situation in Wave Country, and the stranglehold that Gato holds over it. As a result, Kumo, which is close to the coast, has lost precious trade with Wave's shipping fleet practically disappearing as it has been used for smuggling illegal goods instead of being used for legitimate business." Here, his eyes narrowed slightly. "Raikage-sama sent me here to assassinate Gato. I have already accomplished that mission."

Tazuna was at a lack of words, as his eyes took on a glassy appearance at the sudden news. "Y-you mean? He's really gone?"

Aoi let a small smile slide across his face. "Yes, Wave is now free from Gato. I have already delivered the deeds for all of Gato's properties to the Wave daimyo, by order of Raikage-sama." The smile disappeared again from the face. "Technically, assassinating Gato and distributing what he stole back to Wave was all that my mission entailed. However, in my reconnassance thereafter, I had heard that the head engineer for the bridge was coming home. When I heard that Gato had hired a high-class ninja beforehand, one who likely has not realised his employer is already dead, I came here to intercept the mercenary. After all, while Wave should be back on its way to recovery, the successful construction of the bridge to Keiyo Island should significantly speed it up."

Looking back over at Team 7, he spoke up again, "While Konoha and Kumo have no relations that require me to aid you, at the same time we are not really on bad terms. It would be bad for relations if word got out that a Kumo ninja killed three Konoha genin, so you have no need to fear me. Your sensei, however, is very lucky that I had arrived when I did."

Naruto hid a smirk. _Good old Aoi_. The archer had seen Kakashi's still living body and deduced that Kakashi had somehow survived being poisoned as opposed to dying like he was supposed to, and had already changed words accordingly. "Does Gato still have any other mercenaries around that might be causing trouble?"

Aoi pursed his lips. "I took care of most of Gato's army on Keiyo Island, unruly thugs that they are. It will take some time for his men to be cleared out from the other islands, but have no fear, you should not encounter much trouble on Keiyo." Sensing the conversation at an end, he gave a short bow, before ending it off. "Well, I must be off, so adio, Konoha-nin." With a brief flicker of chakra, he was gone in a **Shunshin**.

Tazuna broke the silence again. "Well, I guess I'll show you kids to my place, alright?" Sakura and Sasuke, both still slightly shell-shocked, just nodded their heads in assent. After Naruto successfully implored Sasuke to share in the burden of carrying their sensei's body, the four marched back into the forest, heading to Tazuna's house.

---

**Sorry about the lack of quality in this chapter. I was trying to get an update up fairly quickly, and most of the day I was fairly fatiqued, which should show in the lack of direction in parts of the text near the end.**

**And so the organization Akatsuki finally fails in one of its plans, as Kakashi survives the Wave mission, although with the loss of his Sharingan eye. Bet you didn't see that one coming! The battle at the beginning was a bit difficult for me to write since I didn't really have two opponents going at it; instead, one opponent was fighting from long-range using puppets, while the other had to duck and dive and use guerilla tactics. I think it turned out decently though.**

**Kakashi couldn't be killed off here; he'll be playing a fairly important role in the short future. I apologize if I was a bit vague and possibly inaccurate in this chapter - what Kakashi was poisoned with was a poison that would attack the cells specifically, so it's something your immune system could fight it off (as opposed to simply having too much mercury present in your body - your immune system can't really fight that off). The drugs he took superboosted his immune system temporarily at the cost of body fatique later on, but at the same time his immune system would fight off his Sharingan, which is why he had to take it out. After that, his body would be too weak to accept the Sharingan eye again, not to mention the lack of on-field medics. Since he didn't want a possible enemy getting a Sharingan eye, he crushed it.**

**Aoi Konpeki will definitely show up in some other fics of mine, as well as the idea of Kumo having a number of archers in their ninja forces. Suna has puppeteers and fan-wielders, Kiri is famous for its swordsmen, Iwa presumably has more clay-users than Deidara given the advance details for this week's manga chapter so far, I felt Kumo needed their own distinct type of weapon.**

**Last chapter, I posted a bit of a working model on my idea of how bloodlines might work in the Narutoverse. This time around, I'd like to post my ideas on elemental manipulation.**

**We know from the manga that there are five main elements in chakra - Lightning, Fire, Water, Earth and Wind, as well as subelements, such as ice and lava. Each person is aligned to a certain elemental type. Naruto, for example, is a Wind-type, while Kakashi is a Lightning-type.**

**What I'm planning on doing is working it out so that 'elemental chakra' doesn't actually exist, but is instead a 'different way' of controlling normal chakra (or Shape Transformation). Instead of being aligned to an actual elemental type, each person instead just happens to be able to manipulate their chakra in certain ways easier than in other methods - for example, the Uchiha clan would have an easy time at using their chakra to heat things up and control the movement of heat (which would be the basis of their fire techniques) but would have a slightly harder time causing ions to rub together and generate electricity, the basis for lightning techniques. Saying somebody is good at katon manipulation just means they can easily convert chakra energy into heat and control the heat - the chakra isn't of an actual element, but over time the shinobi world will just have dumbed it down to that everybody has an elemental affinity, and the theory behind it will have faded out of general knowledge.**

**What would pass for wind manipulation is being able to use your chakra to 'cut' like a razor edge or being able to use compressed hair to hit something like a hammer. At the same time, controlling the actual air would require being able to manipulate your chakra to influence something with a fluid nature - controlling a fluid would also be the basis of water manipulation, so obviously the two 'elements' would be semi-related. Lightning could be related to wind and water again by using the same basis of the movement of fluids to be able to manipulate the movement of ions, and through the method of fluids again it could be related to heat, which is also a fluid.**

**In this manner, a shinobi could master using all five elements by understanding how chakra has to be manipulated to work a technique from any of the five natures of chakra, and relating the other ways of manipulating chakra to the one he's most aligned with.**


	8. Night of a Thousand Sighs

**Chapter Eight - "Night of a Thousand Sighs"**

---

**This chapter is an intermission chapter of sorts, with POV from four different characters that should help set the stage for the next little bit of drama in the story, as well as showing the perspective of other characters that need some time to shine in the spotlight, and who will eventually become a lot more important. Originally there was going to be a fifth scene, but I decided that the character who it was about shouldn't show up until a little later on.**

**The way I wrote the endings to each scene might be a bit iffy - if you don't like it, suggest something! I do edit my chapters and add some new lines from time to time, as well as the occasional new scene, so don't be afraid to click that review button.**

**UPDATE: As of December 28****th****, 2009, an extra fifth scene has been added.**

---

Hiruzen Sarutobi leafed through the report that he had just received from Kakashi, and his face took on a murderous look as he perused the papers he had already read through twice before.

In the past two years, the Hidden Leaf Village had lost fourteen full genin teams on missions, in addition to the countless single fatalities. Of course, there were always casualties out on the battlefields with the inexperienced younger ninjas (he could remember the day that the Yondaime, while still a Hokage-elect, had come in demoralized by the loss of the Uchiha on his team), but these numbers seemed to have skyrocketed in comparison to the past.

And now this. Kakashi's team had been ambushed by an A-Class missing ninja. Kakashi himself was at death's door, and was only saved by the intervention of a Kumo ninja, and the special drugs he had been given by Tsunade a decade and a half ago in case of a situation like the one he had reported being in. If not for that, then the village could have lost the Uchiha heir and their jinchuuriki (and unwitting Hokage's son).

The Sandaime pursed his lips together. It was a little known fact, for security reasons of course, but in the regular ninja hierachy in Konoha, there were two ranks in between Jonin and Hokage. First, there was the Elite Jonin rank - this was awarded to shinobi who had skills above and beyond the normal jonin, who would rank as high A-Rank in the Bingo Book. An Elite Jonin had authority that superseded most ANBU, with the exception of the elite Black Ops members, certain squad captains, and the ANBU Commander. They were the men who would dictate orders during a full-scale battle or war. Only six ninja held this rank at the moment, one of which was Kakashi, another of which was Maito Gai, and a third was Nara Shikaku. Above that was the rank of High Jonin, which was only given to ninjas who ranked at the very least a low S-Class, and whose orders could only be contradicted by the Hokage himself. Jiraiya of the Sannin, the ANBU Head Commander, and the Black Ops Commander were the only ones who held that ranking currently; in the case the Hokage was incapacitated, any one of the three could step up and temporarily control the village until a new Hokage was selected if the previous Hokage had yet to select one. Only the people Sarutobi could really trust held that ranking, otherwise the potential for the abuse of power was mind-boggling.

But that was getting away from the subject. Hatake should have been easily able to wipe the floor with Shirosuna no Hakko, who was classified as only a low A-Ranking nukenin. Instead, he had nearly died. Sarutobi would give the man a tongue-lashing when he got home, before ordering him to get a regular eye implant. Kakashi had relied on his Sharingan for far too long - he would have to return to regular depth perception, and start showing the skill that he had exhibited before that mission to destroy the Kannabi Bridge. Perhaps a stint in the ANBU's extensive training courses would bring him back into shape.

Still, once they got home, Kakashi would likely be unable to return to duty for at least another month, and that begged the question of who should replace Team 7's sensei. He had already written off Haruno Sakura - she simply wasn't important enough to warrant into the decision for the new teacher. No, instead he had to look at Uchiha Sasuke and Uzumaki Naruto. Should he get somebody who could keep training Sasuke, all the while cementing his loyalty to Konoha in the process of tempering his zeal for killing Itachi? Or should he get somebody who could keep a constant eye on Naruto, making sure he didn't become too skilled, and could control him if he got out of hand with the Kyuubi chakra?

Leafing through some jonin profiles, Sarutobi allowed himself a rare smile. Yes, there was one who could fit into both categories. He didn't have any specific skills that could be used to help Sasuke, but he had recently served a tenure as an ANBU captain, and should be able to pass some of the skills garnered into ANBU onto Sasuke. Additionally, he could not only control the Kyuubi chakra should it become an issue, but also pacify it. Yes, he would assign this man to teach Team 7, and hopefully he could keep their dynamics together and help strengthen the Leaf. Getting up, he barked out, "Kawauso."

The ANBU he called out for appeared in front of his desk, down on one knee, head bowed, right hand at his chest palm up in a gesture of servitude. "Your orders, Hokage-sama?"

Sarutobi was quite clear and concise in his orders. "Bring ANBU Codename Tora-28 to my office for a debriefing on his new assignment."

The ANBU stood up. "As is your will, Hokage-sama." With a brief **Shunshin**, he was out of the building, and off to the ANBU HQ, while planning to hand over the information he had just received to a certain flaxen-haired genin saboteur.

Sarutobi turned around, and sighed, looking out the window of his office at the sprawling metropolis that made up the village of Konoha. Even if he would serve Konoha until the day he died, ordering dirty act after dirty act and sweeping it under the carpet all the time, he still wished he could have stayed in retirement like he was supposed to have fourteen years ago when he stepped down, allowing the Yondaime to replace him. Neither of his wayward students wanted to be Hokage - hell, one even refused to step foot in the village - and of course Orochimaru was not an option. Both his ANBU Commander and Black Ops Commander had the skills and the prowess to do the job, but their own jobs were still far too important and too difficult to replace with good men, and it would take too long to build a public profile for them before they could step into office, knocking them out of the running. Most of his Elite Jonin had the public awareness to be in the Hokage office, but either lacked the skill, were too lazy, or had difficulties with public relations (or a combination of all three!).

He sighed again. Already he had begun to get his body back into shape, bringing one of the ANBU Commander's trusted trainers in to help him. He had to survive this upcoming battle with Orochimaru, lest his rival Danzo worm his way into office. Oh, he trusted Danzo to be ruthless and do what had to be done, but the old war hawk would likely go one step too far; he would lose any comraderie that had been built up over the years between Konoha proper and the clans, and in the pursuit of solidifying his hold over Konoha, soften it up for invasion from outside forces. As if going for a threepeat, Sarutobi let out one last sigh.

---

Unknown to Sarutobi, eight hundred kilometers away, another person was also sitting over his desk, sighing in order with the Sandaime. Yahiko had several of the answers to Sarutobi's questions, but he definitely wouldn't be handing them over. Looking through reports from three separate ninjas over the mission in Wave, Yahiko was slightly upset that Sharingan Kakashi wasn't killed, but the loss of his Sharingan eye was an acceptable alternative.

More importantly, Hakko had successfully retrieved the Otter contract out of Kiri, while Aoi had managed to liberate much of Gato's wealth. While some had been handed over to Wave, a lot of it would be coming back to Ame. Wave was after all in an enviable position, being a major trading hub on the East Coast, as well as having some decent farmland and fishing. They would be back on their feet in no time. Ame, on the other hand, needed constant transfusions of cash to keep up; Yahiko had been working on getting infrastructure in the land of endless rain up to task, but it had gone neglected under Hanzo's rule. Amegakure itself used to be one big slum area, and the farms were constantly being flooded, ruining the crops. Since Yahiko's takeover, over forty percent of the city had been through maintenance or rebuilt, dams had been built to keep from flooding, and roads were paved.

But Amegakure was still a military village, and that cost money, particularly with Yahiko's schemes. Kakuzu's bounty hunters brought in a fair amount of money, but the man himself was constantly pining for more and more cash, and Yahiko knew that the Akatsuki was far too dependent on the man's talents and contacts for his own economical health. So money had to be pulled in from elsewhere to bring Amegakure back up to standard. Selling food surpluses and shipping freshwater to Suna brought in some money, but sometimes he simply would have to steal from other countries or hidden villages.

Sometimes he wondered if it was all worth it. Certainly, over the last decade and a half, the Elemental Nations had seen a 10% dip in shinobi numbers, several of the bijuu had been neutralized as possible threats to peace, and his beloved Ame was on track to rise back up in the world. However, he had to make some sacrifices - he hadn't seen his wife Konan, who he had married a decade back, or his three children, in four days! He knew running a village would suck up a lot of his time, but this was ridiculously so! He had to wonder just how Salamander Hanzo had been so powerful, even running into his late fifties at the time, could have stayed in form so well, to the point that it took Yahiko, Nagato, and Konona over two hours to finally kill the salamander summoner in their final battle. Yahiko trusted many others to help him with the administration of the village, and yet he barely had enough time to keep the skills that had allowed him to finally vanquish Hanzo at the end.

Juggling his life's work and his family was a difficult display of acrobatics, but it was one that was necessary. Still, sometimes he wished he could just ditch all the paperwork, grab his family, and leave the Elemental Continents altogether to the western lands, where they had achieved unity years ago. The orange-haired man just couldn't help it. He sighed again.

---

In an office opposite of where Yahiko resided, another ginger-haired man woke up from a deep sleep. Swiveling his body around so he sat on his bed mattress, he took a deep yawn, stretching his arms out by extending them towards the heaven. Nagato was in his mid-thirties, and by now, his body had stopped growing, and he tired more easily than he would have a decade ago. Even though he only maintained two clones full-time these days as spies as opposed to the six he did when him and his comrades had first started out in ruling over Ame, the **Shōten no Jutsu** still consumed a large amount of chakra, and he had to sleep more than the usual to recover all his lost chakra. He hoped to finally get rid of the need for one of his separate clones within a year, freeing him up to take a bigger role in Ame.

Of course, once he finally had the stamina and chakra to do so, he knew exactly what he would be doing: he would be training his body back into form, using the Rinnegan to help him along the way. He had never had to use the **Gedō Mazō** thanks to Yahiko finally being able to strike the final blow to Hanzo at the end of Ame's civil war, so his body was still in reasonably decent shape, as opposed to being frail and on life support. However, it also robbed him of the chance to actually control other bodies via the use of chakra transmitters, so he could only use himself and clones as opposed to real bodies.

_Still_, the redhead thought as he brushed his long hair out of the way, letting moonlight shine through the window, revealing his multiple-ringed Rinnegan eyes, _I must do what I can_. Nagato viewed Yahiko as the greatest of them all, and had done all he could to support the carrot-top in his goals to change the ninja world, but he had a selfish desire of his own.

Specifically, he wanted to confront his sensei, Jiraiya of the Sannin. When Jiraiya had first left the trio, claiming they had become strong enough, Nagato had been forlorn - of the three, he had seen Jiraiya as a foster father the most. It made sense, considering Nagato was the one Jiraiya had specifically trained the most, because of his doujutsu. Jiraiya had, during that time, expounded on his own ideals of peace in the world, and ending the cycle of hatred, and tried to encourage Nagato onwards to finding his own way of solving the worlds problems.

And so, Nagato had laboured for many years after Jiraiya had left them behind that one rainy midsummer night, leaving nothing but a dream behind, constantly improving his skills so that they could take on Hanzo. It had been a treacherous journey, and he had lost many dear friends, but they had finally achieved victory.

Then he found out just how much of a bastard his sensei had been.

Jiraiya might have been willing to preach about peace in the world, but it seemed that he was a patriot of the highest order. Hanzo's private diaries told of intel his spies had from Konoha, of how Jiraiya had slaughtered dozens of Ame genins during the beginning of the Second Great Shinobi War, seeking to cripple Ame's next generation of ninja from presenting a threat to Konoha. Later, He had used his toad summons to destroy a dam in Earth Country in the beginning days of the Third Great Shinobi War, destroying a farming village that provided food to Iwagakure.

The final straw was when Nagato had brought Uzumaki Naruto back to Ame to convince him of the Akatsuki's goals. To find that Jiraiya had been the yellow-haired boy's godfather, only to abandon him as an orphan at birth, while simultaneously trying to forcibly bind him to Konoha's shinobi force and repress his growth, was just reprehensible.

For all of his squawking about peace, Jiraiya seemed willing to achieve peace only if his beloved Konoha would come out on top in the end, not caring about how many lives he destroyed in the end. True, the Akatsuki actively tried to sabotage any village that wasn't Amegakure or Sunagakure, but the way they did it worked to lessen the chance of war, and they most definitely strayed away from killing anybody who hadn't enrolled as a soldier or a ninja. Things that Jiraiya did was likely to invoke hostilities and possible war, just wars that Konoha would start off with being the stronger power.

There was only one thing that kept Nagato from flat-out wanting to kill Jiraiya - he simply couldn't understand why Jiraiya had taken two years out of his life to train a group of orphans from an enemy country. Certainly, when he found out that Nagato had the Rinnegan, his interest in their training picked up, but he had to have a motivation before that, and Nagato simply couldn't understand why. If Jiraiya's reasons didn't satisfy Nagato, the ginger-haired man would steel his heart and kill his sensei - as an S-Class ninja, a summoner, and a sage, Jiraiya's potential to cause devastation was far too great. If his reasons were acceptable...Nagato still hadn't decided what he would do.

It was a dilemma worthy of a sigh, which he let out.

---

Watching the moon as it slowly moved across the skyline was always comforting to her. In particular was her vantage point; a thick branch high up on the Great Tree of Taki, the bark smoothed out over the passage of centuries making for a great sleeping spot, with only her and her sleeping bag. Fū didn't know why she was always dazzled and enticed by such a view; perhaps it was the influence of the beast within her.

There was a reason that Senju Hashirama had chosen to give the Nanabi no Kabutomushi to Takigakure; it was one of only two bijuu that seemed to have a particular singular habitat, the other being the Yonbi who lived in a volcano in Earth Country, in opposition to a bijuu such as the Ichibi who wandered a large swath of the deserts of Wind Country. The Nanabi had always been around the Tree during the summer and spring months, eight months out of the year. It made sense in an odd sort of way - a giant beetle was attracted to a giant tree. The residents who had lived in Taki during the Nanabi's time of freedom had an awkward sort of unspoken agreement - so long as Takigakure didn't interfere with the Nanabi's migratory path, the kabutomushi wouldn't rain destruction down upon the fledgling Hidden Village. When the Shodai Hokage had captured the Nanabi and temporarily sealed it, it would only make sense to hand the Nanabi back to Taki.

The first Nanabi jinchuuriki had been bred for warfare, and was given a loose seal to allow him to channel the Nanabi's chakra easily and manifest its form when under stress. However, it had been an unrequited disaster; although the Nanabi's use had brought Taki glory in the First Great Shinobi War, the Nanabi jinchuuriki had killed many of his allies in bouts of madness.

With the second Nanabi jinchuuriki, a sealmaster was brought in. As the years had gone by, Taki had fallen from power, and opted instead to be a passive shinobi village protected mainly by its impregnable location. The result was that the second jinchuuriki had a seal that was a lot tighter, letting him use the Nanabi's chakra only in life-or-death situations. However, he still acquired several traits of a jinchuuriki - high levels of chakra and stamina, as was common to all jinchuuriki was the main one. However, he had also been gifted with high-frequency running legs, akin to how a hummingbird could flutter its wings at a quick speeds, allowing him to cover distances in half as much time as other shinobi could. He had redeemed his scorned name with a career as a messenger and diplomat, but had always kept a strong focus on fighting - after all, he was still a jinchuuriki. He had tragically died in the Third Great Shinobi War, having saved three ANBU squads deep in Kumo territory by delivering correspondence between them, before opening up a hole for them to retreat from.

The chocolate-skinned Fū had been the most recently born child that was available when the ANBU had brought back her predecessor's body, so she had been chosen to be the third, and final host of the Nanabi no Kabutomushi, by Shibuki's father. She had grown up being treated fairly nicely, and had graduated from the academy at the age of nine with the help of some specialized training from a few jonins. Two years later, she became a chunin, and started to work as a courier nin. During her time training in Takigakure, she had become a stunningly beautiful Kunoichi, with shoulder-length lime-green hair, semi-dark skin, and pupilless violet eyes.

It was on her first vacation that she had been abducted, while traveling through Ame. There, she had met Yahiko, who had explained to her his life and his goals. Fū would be lying if she said that she wasn't taken in by his natural charisma and his ambition to achieve peace by taking away the need for war. While she was originally resistant to the idea, Yahiko had taken her on a tour through the country he lived in, and showed her what happened when war had come to Ame. Fū hadn't seen war before, living in a fairly peaceful village that was protected by its obscure location, but she still shuddered to think of some of the sights she had seen. Buildings that had been gutted by fire. Forests that had been destroyed, farmland that had been salted. Residents in Amegakure no Sato itself looked like they survived life instead of living it, and Yahiko had assured her that that was after a decade and a half of his struggles to improve living conditions.

She had agreed to become a part of the Akatsuki, and had since attended whatever meetings the Akatsuki branch in Takigakure had whenever she was around. Already she was fifty-five percent done processing the Nanabi's chakra, and would most likely be done within the next three years. Once it was done, she would have to start deceiving her leader as to her status as a jinchuuriki. It wasn't that she disliked Shibuki, or anything; no, in fact, she admired the man for his leadership of Taki. However, he was just far too passive in his duties, too willing to roll over and let things happen. If somebody actually invaded Taki, she wasn't sure if he would actually lead a defense at all or just surrender to the invaders.

Moving on in her procession of thoughts, a smile lit her face as she thought about her dear little foxy companion, Uzumaki Naruto. To be sure, they didn't hit it off that well at first, particularly with Naruto's habit of adding familiar suffixes at first contact. However, after that little incident in which she displayed her fiery feminine rage, they had managed to hit it off rather well, and soon the minor age difference didn't really matter at all to the two of them. She let out a small sigh, however, at remembering Naruto's lineage. If that ever got out while Naruto was still undercover in Konoha, the politicians there would probably try to pressure him into a political marriage and consummation. Hopefully it wouldn't come to that, or else she and Naruto would somehow have to arrange their meeting in an official event somehow.

---

"Kabuto-kun!" Orochimaru yelled at his beleaguered assistant across the dim-lit chamber, while he himself was looking through the microscope at a cell sample, "What is the status on Experiment 17?"

"Experiment 17 is currently in stasis, Orochimaru-sama," was Kabuto's response. "Would you like me to get it out for you?"

"No, no, not right now," the Sannin said, waving his hand at his assistant as an idle response. "I may need some more blood extractions from it later on for experimentation; my current supply is almost empty."

"As you wish, Orochimaru-sama," Kabuto said with a mocking bow. "Is there anything else that you need?"

"Yes, yes, there is." Was the ex-Leaf shinobi's reply, as he got up from his microscope, wiping his hands on some towels after washing them. "How goes your endeavours? You are sure Konoha knows nothing of you and nothing of me?"

Kabuto shook his head. "No, Orochimaru-sama. My team has taken the large majority of the genin-level missions into Ta no Kuni for the last four years under the pretense of Misumi Tsurugi having several relatives up here that he can visit during and after missions, and I have even gone so far as to get agents to play along with that just in case higher-ups from Konoha decide to do some snooping around. Otogakure has only been in the public eye for the last six months, so they would be hard-pressed to connect us. And besides," Here he let out one of those weird mocking grins that always chilled even Orochimaru, "They would never suspect all three of us along with our jonin-sensei of being your spies."

"Kukukuku, excellent, Kabuto-kun," Orochimaru said, clasping his hands together. "And what of the invasion? Is there the possibility that our plans have been leaked?"

Here, Kabuto frowned. "It is possible that Konoha suspects Iwa of being up to something. The Tsuchikage has not been nearly careful enough in his machinations, taking a smaller amount of higher-class missions in the last few months, and I would not put it past the intelligence department of ANBU to be constantly looking for any change from the usual patterns of Iwa's missions and patrols."

Orochimaru grinded his teeth and clenched his hands into fists, as his anger became palpable. "That fool! I told Ōnoki to be more careful. Iwagakure might end up needing a Yondaime Tsuchikage soon." Forcing himself to calm, he began to deliberate out loud, but nevertheless mindful of the presence of Kabuto. "No matter, I suppose that Konohagakure would be suspicious as soon as Iwa accepts their invitation to the Chunin exams." Seeing Kabuto's surprised face, Orochimaru elaborated. "Konoha always sends out invitations to every hidden village, no matter their relations. I wouldn't doubt the old monkey to feign ignorance to lure Iwa in for an ambush, he was always ruthless like that. No matter, you are sure they do not suspect Oto of being complicit with Iwa?"

Kabuto shook his head. "No, Orochimaru-sama. The only agent we lost in the last few months was Toujo Mizuki, who knew nothing about your status as Otokage. I just recently managed to acquire some of Hatake Kakashi's initial reports on Team 7 and Uchiha Sasuke."

"Kukukuku, excellent." Said the pale-skinned older man, as he continued switching out laboratory equipment for his next examination of cell samples. "Very well, Kabuto-kun, I will expect the report on my desk within the hour. You are dismissed." However, Orochimaru wasn't done yet, as he called for the white-haired medic-nin shortly before he made his way out of the lab. "Oh, and Kabuto?"

The adopted Yakushi knew Orochimaru was being truly serious here, as he had dropped the mocking honorific he gave to nearly everybody. "Yes, Orochimaru-sama?"

"I'll kill you if you ever betray me, Kabuto-kun."

"Yes, Orochimaru-sama."

As Kabuto made it out of the lab, he had to repress a sigh. The man most certainly wasn't subtle in that regard. He was well aware that Orochimaru was quite wary of his true loyalties, having 'rescued' him from a purported loyalty seal years ago put on him by Akasuna no Sasori, but still unsure of whom he truly called master. The only reason he was able to obtain so much information on Orochimaru's operations was because he was too useful to the man to be disposed of or put on lesser projects. It was a tough game to play, having to act as a mole, double agent, and in some cases triple agent.

But it would come to pass some day. When Yahiko and Sasori destroyed the society that had built up around the hidden village system, there would be many people with knowledge of external manipulation of chakra, but little reason to use it for offensive purposes. In that environment, they would instead seek more esoteric ways to use chakra, such as the field of medicine that he, Yakushi Kabuto, was a master of. He would be able to gain access to the years of documents of experimentation into forbidden venues that had been built up by the hidden villages that were destroyed in the process. A genius, Orochimaru may be, if a bit insane, but he was merely a single man who had been working for thirty years. Konoha, Kiri, Iwa, Kumo, all of them and more doubtlessly had experiments in many different fields comprised of the work of hundreds of men spanning nearly a century, perhaps even further. When he laid his hands on all the knowledge he could, he would be able to decipher the secrets of chakra, of the bijuu, and of life. He would understand.

---

**And so, an intermission chapter of sorts. I know a few of you reviewers have been complaining that I'm focusing too much on Naruto - Naruto's POV is of course the main point of the story, but I know exactly where you're coming from, and I've had this planned since the beginning of the story. There'll definitely be more intermission chapters in the future, since the scale of the fic will slowly begin to expand as time passes.**

**I'm still not quite sure how to write Kabuto. This last scene might get a bit of a rewrite again in the future, but for now being able to become famed for his art and delving into forbidden territories seems a bit reasonable.**

**That said, I've passed 40k word count, so yay, I level up a category in the word count filter.**

**With this chapter, I'll probably be back on hiatus for a couple of weeks again before I start writing the next batch of chapters. In-between I'll likely fix up the last three chapters, possibly add a new scene here or there, and definitely add in a few new sentences here or there (this chapter in particular, since a few of the scenes I didn't quite like how I ended them, as well as the battle scenes from last chapter), so it'll be worth a re-read in the future.**


	9. Five Months Remaining

**Chapter Nine – Five Months Remaining**

**---**

**Sorry I was late. See, first my cat was on my computer chair and I had to evict him, then when I tried to type I saw that I couldn't find my keyboard, which resulted in Stephen Hawking showing up to explain that there was a black hole between me and the keyboard that was drawing away all the light from the keyboard meaning I couldn't see it (see Simpsons episode "Don't Fear the Roofer" for the joke), then when the black hole evaporated from giving off enough Hawking radiation aliens broke through my window and tried to kidnap me, which resulted in me blowing up my condo to kill them, then the government took me in and asked me a bunch of questions, and I didn't get out of questioning until yesterday. Needless to say I have been busy!**

**Sorry about the short chapter, too. I've been feeling slightly unmotivated lately, and this will probably be the only chapter for a bit.**

**---**

The situation in Wave was worth sneering at, Naruto thought to himself as he walked through the streets during midday, a Henge over his body causing him to look like a native Wave citizen. Gato had managed to cow an entire country into submission simply by killing a single man. Where was their resolve? Did they not love their country? Why had they been unwilling to fight back? True, Gato had many mercenaries, but even he would hesitate over killing too many citizens; after all, the labour that the stronger men of Wave provided for what scraps of food were available were what supported the ex-tyrant's business. One thing was for sure, however – Tazuna had been the exception in Wave, perhaps drawing off of Kaiza's sacrifice, and not the norm.

Tazuna had already delivered the news to the villager about Gato being dead, and already joy had spread throughout the populace. Pathetic. One man, no matter how trained he was, had managed to eliminate most of Gato's army and slay the dwarf himself, and suddenly they went from looking miserable to throwing their arms in the air with a cheer? To summon the energy up from nowhere just like that meant they had the energy to defy Gato from the shadows.

The flaxen-haired genin (though a brunette in his disguise) let out a sigh, and decided to cast his judgements aside for another day. Kakashi was still bedridden, and Sasuke and Sakura, both helping out at the bridge as guards against any leftover bandits, thought that the real Naruto was somewhere amongst the hundred Kage Bunshins that he had left behind to speed up the pace of the project. The Kage Bunshins were necessary, too; Kakashi might not be up too full strength, but he would still be able to travel again within a few day's time, and Naruto wanted to get back to Konoha as quickly as possible.

And so here he was, off in a deserted part of the village. After the people of Wave gave up, many had left the country in a rush on what available transportation was still left. In the ensuing confusion, many houses and entire districts were left abandoned. That just made it all the better to place a safehouse in if it was ever required. There were many discrete symbols that the Akatsuki had created to place over items of interest over the years; in this case, Naruto managed to find what he was looking for when he spotted a house with a stone chameleon statue on the porch (the statue itself was nailed solidly into the porch to deter possible thieves).

Extending his senses to make sure there was nobody about to catch a sight of him, Naruto walked up the stairs and pushed open the unlocked door to gain entry to the house. He took a cautionary sniff before taking a deep whiff of the air around him. It was faint, but there was the smell of flowers in the air. Good then, this was the right house.

Taking a flight of stairs down into the basement of the house, Naruto found what he was looking for; a pair of scrolls, with Hakko Awai's trademark calling card for drop-off locations, a vase with several white lilies in it, next to the scrolls. Finding the first scroll had a chakra lock on it, Naruto went through a small series of hand seals before holding his hand to the scroll to unlock it. A chakra lock required chakra manipulated in a certain way to open it – since every hand seal sequence caused a different manipulation of chakra to be formed, the more hand seals that were added on made the unlocking sequence more difficult if a non-Akatsuki member should somehow pick up on a safehouse.

Reading over the scroll, Naruto's eyebrows rose. Gato had _that much money_? Damn. Much of the info that was in the parchment detailed Hakko's infiltration of Gato, his working under the criminal tycoon, and all the knowledge he had garnered while in his organization. After rereading it over, Naruto locked the scroll back up, and set it aside. Eyeing the other scroll, he rolled up his right sleeve; although invisible to the naked eye, there was a sealing mark just above his elbow that was used as a storage space. He would need to hold onto this until later, when he could get to an open area, where there was an even smaller chance of being discovered than there was here.

It was interesting just how powerful information was, such as the info that had gotten him this scroll. For example, only a handful of people knew, but Kumogakure in fact already had a Hyuga, a willing male member of the Branch Family who had pretended to go missing on a mission into Kiri before carefully covering his tracks and heading north. That a male was far more valuable than a female, not to mention that he had secretly learned the **Hakke Rokujūyon Shō **and **Kaiten**, ensured that he would live a ripe old age in Kumo with plenty of wealth while passing on the Hyuga arts, as opposed to being killed and dissected once Kumo could break the Curse Seal (or worse, having his eyes taken out while still alive). In fact, the attempted kidnapping of Hyuga Hinata was deliberately botched. The only reason Kumo had even attempted the kidnapping was to throw away suspicion; after all, what better way for the Hyuga Clan to think Kumo didn't have the Byakugan than to try to kidnap the heiress?

He had once heard an interesting proverb, _'Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.' _ It was something that might apply to most people, but not to ninja; greatness generally meant one would gain a reputation (or notoriety in his case, something he had put upon him on the day of his birth), something no real shinobi desired, but with the scroll he had just grasped in his hand before sealing it away could help him achieve greatness of a different kind.

**---**

It was a bit of an odd experience walking back – without Tazuna to slow them down to a civilian's pace, Team 7 could afford to go at a far quicker pace, though with Kakashi somewhat out of shape (and Sakura lacking overall stamina), it still took them three days.

When day began to break every day, the three genins and their jonin-sensei stopped and pitched their camp. On the first night, with a full moon casting luminous light over the clearing they had settled in, Kakashi had shown them the tree-climbing exercise.

Naruto could only make guesses as to why Kakashi had chosen now to do this. However, he had been well-educated on ninja intrigue and politics, and could make an educated guess; Kakashi probably thought he was going to be relieved from duty as a sensei after this. It would make sense, considering he no longer had the Sharingan eye that would enable him to help Sasuke. Sure, he still had the experience to go along with it (not to mention hundreds of jutsus) but it just wouldn't be the same. Not to mention he had lost against a (supposedly) _lower_ A-Rank nukenin, had nearly been killed in the process, and would need months of intensive conditioning to get back into full form after recovering from a near-fatal toxin – which would consume time, time that he might not be able to spend teaching.

That said, Sasuke had already known how to walk up a tree, so Kakashi settled for giving him difficult deviants of the original exercise, such as hopping between multiple trees and latching onto them as soon as he landed on the next tree, as well as hanging upside down from a branch for as long as possible.

Sakura had gotten adapted to the exercise quickly, succeeding on her third try (Naruto suspected she might have done it on her first if not for her fatique). Kakashi ignored giving her the same thing he did with Sasuke, and instead took her aside and told her about water walking, and explained the differences, ending off with a 'practice tree walking for now to gain stamina' and to start on water walking once they got home.

Of course he already knew it himself (somebody who has versed himself in deception for nearly a decade does not allow a weakness, in his case chakra control, to go unfixed), but for appearance's sake, Naruto had to pretend to not know it already. Still, he didn't want to stay on the exercise for too long, so he gave off a calm demeanour when he began practicing running up a physical surface. Calm demeanours meant there was little fluctuation in a person's chakra, so (combined with his seemingly inexhaustible stamina) it wasn't very suspicious when he finally reached the peak of a fifty-foot tree midway through the second night.

Eventually, when they reached Konoha, Kakashi was given orders to report to the Hokage immediately. Their silver-haired sensei told them that they would receive instructions at a later time; that he did not give an exact date or time consolidated the theory in Naruto's head that Kakashi was to be replaced. While his father's student was to meet with the Hokage, however, he would have to catch up on the reports filed by various members of the brotherhood.

**---**

The **Gentōshin no Jutsu** this time around was far easier to hold and maintain than usual, Naruto observed. There were several good reasons for that, of course; first of all, Mizuki was currently in the underground hideout in the flesh, and a small part of the chakra burden had been passed onto him. Secondly, several people were gone currently; Yamanaka Inori was off working overtime in Konoha's T&I department, two pairs of chunin gate guards were currently being put through the ringer on security for the upcoming chunin exams, and both a jonin-sensei and an ANBU member were off on long-term missions. It would be annoying helping them catch up with the debriefing later on, but it made for his chakra to not be taxed as hard. Thankfully, Kabuto was here – of all the undercover Akatsuki members, Naruto would easily say that Kabuto was the most important, even more than himself, a former jinchuuriki – being the trusted right hand man of the Snake Sannin would that for one's value.

Naruto refrained from a quick and blunt entrance, and instead greeted everyone in a cordial manner. "Good evening, everybody," he said with the hint of a smile on his face. "How are you all tonight?" Personal interaction was integral to the brotherhood; if they didn't interact enough, they could never trust each other, and trust was key here. Even with the use of fuinjutsu, Akatsuki could still implode from within. That was why Naruto usually tried to start off with a few minutes of chit-chat before going on to the debriefing itself.

This time around, one topic dominated the early pre-debriefing; members were giving their congratulations to Uchiha Raika, the man who had originally leaked the Uchiha's coup plans to Nagato, for his wife having a successful labor. When prodded for details, he willingly gave away his new son's name – Uchiha Hirameku. Naruto was proud of the man, and hoped the happiness between Raika and his wife managed to last for some times before the ugliness of clan politics reared its head. Under normal conditions, bloodline clans consented to having twenty percent of marriages be to outsiders; this number was large enough that the clan would not become too inbred, but small enough so that the bloodline itself stayed strong. However, with the Uchiha Massacre, what remaining bachelors and bachelorettes there were had been encouraged to all marry outsiders, and to reproduce as quickly as possible. Soon enough, Raika would be under pressure to have another child with his wife, and probably a third and fourth afterwards, to repopulate the Uchiha clan.

Naruto let the banter go on for a bit before intervening. "Let us move onto the meeting now, shall we?" The present members all stopped their chattering, and turned towards Naruto. "Kabuto, can you please present the Akatsuki with the new details you have uncovered about the invasion?"

The silver-haired medic pushed his glasses up onto his nose, a persistent habit he had been unable to squash. "Gladly." Clearing his throat for a long speech, he began to talk, "As you all know, Iwa is in on the plan for invasion," Here he received several nods. "Several Iwa shinobi will infiltrate the Chunin Exam finals and strike at Konoha from within. Sometimes during the finals, several Oto shinobi of high chakra control , including myself, will link together to use the **Nehan Shōja no Jutsu **to put to sleep as many shinobi as we can, as well as all the civilians." That was important. While it was accepted that civilians sometimes simply were a part of collateral damage in a battle, daimyos and lords and other wealthy clients did not often hire villages that deliberately killed civilians from another hidden village. Henceforth, by putting the civilians to sleep, they could minimize casualties by avoiding a panic caused by the regular villagers.

"Most of the Iwa-nin will be on the outside, however, laying siege to Konoha's walls once the invasion starts. Normally, because Konoha is protected by Mokuton-created seal-reinforced wood, trying to forcibly break into Konoha would be a disaster in the making. However," and here Kabuto looked truly nervous, "Orochimaru has designed several large-scale seals. Once imprinted onto the ground, several Oto shinobi working in conjunction can summon some of the larger snakes to attack Konoha. But that is not all: Ganseki will also be there."

Whatever jovial mood that there had been in the room evaporated instantly at the mention of the latter name. Ganseki of Iwa did not have a very intimidating kill count of his own; however, he was the only known ninja to have ever been able to summon golems, beings created from animated rock. They were almost impossible to destroy, and have massive amounts of physical strength. It was Ganseki's summons who had initially allowed Iwa to storm into Grass Country in the Third Great Shinobi War and make the march towards Konoha, but even his golems were no match for Namikaze Minato. While the Yellow Flash wasn't physically as powerful as a golem, usage of the Hiraishin and Rasengan, the latter which could pierce even the tough rock skin of a golem, managed to dispel Ganseki's summons prematurely.

Even still, Ganseki and his golems' reputation remained strong. Even one golem attacking Konoha could cause a lot of trouble, but if he managed to summon multiple golems, while Konoha was also being attacked by several snakes, along with thousands of shinobi, while their leader was being waylaid by the Snake Sannin, it was easy to see how Konoha might struggle to win.

"Great Kami," was all that Hyuga Chokkan managed to say. He took a deep breath, and then asked, "Do we have the logistics for disrupting their plan yet?"

One of the members, an ANBU who was currently wearing his mask, Kawauso, shook his head, "Unfortunately, no. Planning is in the process between those of us who have access to the village's defense plans. While we can easily disrupt the snake summoning rituals by messing up their summoning circles, Ganseki is a different thing altogether. He will be summoning his golems personally, and it will look all too suspicious if somebody takes him out before he gets a chance to do anything. We still have five months, however, to work out what will be done."

"Moving on," Kabuto butt in, "Is the next part of the plan. Orochimaru's Edo Tensei."

The Edo Tensei technique was something that they needed to stop from being utilized at all costs; not because those they resurrected might be able to overtake the Sandaime in battle and kill him (though that was currently undesirable), but because it revived the _dead_. Who knew what the dead could do when they were dead? On one hand, perhaps they had no after-life awareness when the Shinigami came to retrieve them, and the revived forms of the Shodai, Nidaime and Yondaime Hokage would only remember their own life. However, nobody knew what the dead could do, so if any of the three had been watching Konoha after their own lives were long over, and knew of Akatsuki and their plans, who knew what they might blab once they had been reanimated on the corporeal plane? None of the Akatsuki were willing to take that risk.

Kabuto continued on once the shift in subjects had settled into everyone's minds. "As we all already know, Edo Tensei is able to revive the dead. However, I have come up with a couple of new details; first of all, to initiate the summoning of the dead, Orochimaru must sacrifice a large amount of chakra, meaning he will be exhausted after he uses the technique. Doubtlessly he expects the three revived Hokage's to hold off the Sandaime long enough for him to regain his breath." Here, Kabuto had his index finger raised, then raised his middle finger to indicate a second detail. "Secondly, for each body that Orochimaru revives, he must offer a living body in return to the Death God. The living sacrifice must also be put in a ritual sealing circle. Clearly as you can see, if you remove the sacrifices, Orochimaru will try to summon the three Kages, fail, and lose lots of chakra in the process."

That incited a lot of buzz between the present members. The head branch of Akatsuki loathed Orochimaru, who had once tried to join Kakuzu's group, having been fooled by the criminal organization moniker, before being rebutted. While Orochimaru had yet to interfere in their plans, Yahiko-sama had no doubt that given the chance, the Snake Sannin would destroy all their careful planning.

Another member fielded a question, this time Seto Kaiju, a member of a minor Konoha clan that was known for taking care of all the bodies of water around Konoha and the marine life. "Since Konoha knows about the invasion already, have they asked for help from Suna yet?"

Naruto was able to answer that question easily; it was, after all, the report he had paid the most attention to last night. "That they have. However, they have not asked for any significant number of reinforcements." He shook his head. "No, instead the Sandaime asked that the Yondaime bring in as many of his high-level ninja as he can as 'bodyguards' and escorts, as each of them could potentially take out a hundred fodder ninja (it was funny how quickly jargon such as a fodder-nin had become prevalent in the brotherhood) or take out several average jonin-level ninjas, or else tie up any of Iwa's elite members. That includes Kuroisuna no Akira, also known as Sabaku no Akira, Baki no Yaiba, and Kiiroisuna no Saboten."

After that, some more questions were asked on smaller details and answered by others, the discussion going into the morning hours, with a few people dropping out of the **Gentōshin no Jutsu **for missions in the morning.

---

**You know, something I have been annoyed with while reading some Naruto fanfics recently is Naruto's power level. Let me put it this way: in canon, at the age of 12, Naruto graduates as the dead-last of his class. Approximately four years later, he beats the **_**public leader of Akatsuki singlehandedly**_**. In the few months after the Rescue Gaara arc, in which he needs help to disable a vanilla Itachi genjutsu, he manages to develop a jutsu that manages to OHKO Kakuzu, a guy who has iron skin and over **_**seventy years of battle experience**_**.**

**My point? I find it frustrating how many people have plots where he's trained since birth or since age 5 by the likes of Kakashi or Jiraiya or Zabuza and yet he's only high Chunin at best by the time the canon genin graduation starts. Itachi managed to take out his entire clan when he was only thirteen, Deidara was in the Akatsuki by the time he was 16, Sasori killed the Sandaime Kazekage when he was fifteen, Kakashi was a jonin by 13 and presumably didn't have that much guidance after Sakumo suicide until he got the Yondaime as a sensei, so don't be afraid to actually give Naruto some power. Just because he is of a jonin level doesn't mean he'll automatically be on Kakashi's level, but he should still be able to beat a relatively new jonin like Kurenai and put up a fight against, say, Asuma or Genma. For those who still decide to nerf him, you should at least try to give some reasoning for this; say, something like that Naruto hasn't 'connected' well enough with people, so he doesn't have strong enough of bonds to be motivated to train, or that his body isn't physically strong enough or that Jiraiya is clowning around in his training or whatever. Of course, don't go and like super-power him beyond crazy (see william5505's 'The Second Born' for reference where Naruto and Sasuke become godlike with overpowered bloodlines).**

**That said, I realize I haven't yet given a good indicator of Naruto's power. That's deliberate; he won't really be showing any of his skills until the end of Part I of the story (out of two parts), though he'll be fighting before that of course. However he's definitely stronger than Kurenai is, trust me on that.**

**Also, "For Want of a Nail" in this chapter again. In other words, the Uchiha clan survives, so Sasuke HAS to be more advanced at this point in the timeline than he is in canon, so of course he knows how to do tree-climbing. I see way too many fanfics that have Kushina or Minato (or both) alive and actually acting as Naruto's parents (as opposed to trying to kill him, or abandoning him, etc.) and Naruto's still as ignorant as a brick. Not to bash an awesome story in "Seal Shatter" or "Fire Shadow's Son", but Quill of Molliemon has a bit of a problem with this. The latter is somewhat more acceptable, but Kushina is a retired kunoichi in the former who is openly known to be Naruto's mother. He shouldn't still be a dumbass (or at least, not as bad of one).**

**With that rant over, I've been doing a bit of foreshadowing over something. It's a bit minor foreshadowing, but observant readers might have picked up on a recurring theme – specifically, said foreshadowing will have a bit in Chapters One, Seven, Eight, and this chapter. **

**I haven't come up with any good ideas yet for Iwa's version of the elites yet. The Six Sands of Suna is something I mentioned in the AN in Chapter 6, and of course Kiri has the Seven Swordsmen. I'll probably make it up as I go along though.**

**Also, quite a few members of Konoha's Akatsuki branch have been unveiled! Of course I'm not going to have any guesswork going on (particularly since I still have to make up mini-bios and names for some of the characters, with three not having any description yet), but here are the known names and descriptions of the eighteen: Naruto, Kabuto, Izumo and Kotetsu, a second pair of chunin gate guards, Mizuki, Uchiha Raika, Hyuga Chokkan, Yamanaka Inori, a jonin-sensei, two ANBU members, one labelled as Kawauso, a council member, and Seto Kaiju (because Konoha only has seven clans of which five have confirmed clan heirs, one a possible clan heir and one the younger brother to a clan heir, coincidentally all in the SAME CLASS /sarcasm) .**

**Next chapter: A couple of scenes that would've been in this chapter but I wanted to get this one out quickly, which will overlay into the Chunin Exam arc.**


	10. Of Replacements and Bedtime Stories

**Chapter Ten - "Of Replacements and Bedtime Stories"**

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**Nice to see I got 15 reviews in one day after submitting the last chapter! (hint, hint) A big thanks particularly to Orange-Fuzz-Ball for a bunch of reviews at once, as well as matrice for another in-depth high-quality review!**

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As the alarm clock went off, the figure in the bed next to the clock tossed and turned for a bit, before reaching out his arm to turn off the clock.

_What am I doing up at this time again?_, Kakashi thought to himself as he covered his eyes against rays of light coming through the window from the rising sun. _Oh, right_, he realized, remembering his meeting with the Hokage the day beforehand.

***Flashback - The Day Before, Hokage's Office***

"The Hokage shall see you now," was all the secretary had to say to Kakashi shortly after he had come into the waiting lobby. Kakashi took the initiative, gave a light nod to the secretary, and opened the door she had just come out. Walking in, he closed the door behind him, and observed his leader.

Surveying the situation, Kakashi didn't like what was in store for him. The Hokage was out of his desk, standing up and looking out the window, back to Kakashi. He had never seen the wizened leader do that for a meeting, indicating that he was in hot water.

Deciding that now was the time to pay respects, Kakashi merely said, "Hokage-sama," and went down on one knee, his hand at his chest palm-facing up in a motion of submissive respect for his leader.

The minutes passed by, as Kakashi steadily became more nervous. It seemed that the Sandaime was really angry with him. The tension was thankfully broken shortly thereafter as Sarutobi finally spoke. "Sit, Hatake." Kakashi took the order and dropped himself into one of the visitor chairs kept in the office of the Sandaime.

Sarutobi spun around, surprisingly with no pipe in his mouth. Glancing at the desk, the Fire Shadow picked up a folder, and opened it up, leafing through the papers present. "Do you know what this is, Hatake?" It was meant to be a rhetorical question, so Kakashi waited for the Sandaime to continue, which he did. "This is an extensive file that Akasuna no Sasori sent me detailing the skills and techniques possessed by Shirosuna no Hakko shortly after he went nuke-nin five years ago. At that time, you were in the ANBU, and rated quite highly by those few targets you clashed with that escaped, almost cracking the S-Rank barrier." Dropping the folder back onto the desk surface, he steeled his eyes and pierced Kakashi's mental defences with his gaze. "On the other hand, Hakko Awai, as a ninja on the run, would never have time to sit down and develop his skills. You have gotten sloppy since you left ANBU, Hatake, and it shows. Your tardiness has become an issue, you waste hours a day looking at that Memorial Stone, and you still haven't taken the advice of many to refine your Chidori and Raikiri." Taking a look at the Konoha headband that covered Kakashi's now-empty eye socket, he had to restrain himself from spitting. "Two techniques you won't be able to use anymore, unless you finally eliminate your problems with tunnel vision." Taking a brief break from his tongue-lashing of one of his Elite Jonins, Sarutobi sat down in his chair, and adopted a posture in which he rested his head on his hands. "The Uchiha clan is not as miserly in sharing their knowledge as they used to be." That was obvious; they knew they were indebted to Konoha not having completely annihilated them. "The Uchiha harvested plenty of Sharingans from those who Itachi killed four years ago. Because the Sharingan is a heavy part of your reputation, the Uchiha Clan has indirectly benefited from your exploits as they are still feared for what the Sharingan can do. Mikoto may be willing to part with another Sharingan eye to keep that the case. Properly transplanted by an experienced medic as opposed to a battlefield job, you should be able to deactivate it as well. If not, you will receive a normal eye. I will not have one of my Elite Jonin going around with an empty eye socket."

Kakashi felt himself become numb. He had carried around his former teammate's eye for fourteen years now, and had done all that he could to repent for his behaviour before that fateful mission in Kusa. It had crushed him when he had to destroy that eye in Wave. To have to replace Obito's eye, whether with another Sharingan eye or even a regular one, was just so...just so...realizing his throat had become parched, he pushed his tongue around in the cavern of his mouth to produce some saliva, then swallowing, before nodding weakly in response to the Sandaime's words.

"That said, even if you did get another Sharingan eye, it would take you some time to fully adjust it. Additionally, you need to get back into shape, moreso considering you have just recovered from a toxin, and you need to be in top form for when the invasion occurs. As you may have expected by now, you will be relieved from your duties as the jonin-sensei of Team 7."

That hit Kakashi like a bag of rocks to the stomach. He _had_ in fact been expecting it, but to hear it be said was still a real gut-wrencher. Still, what was done was done. "H-hai, Hokage-sama," he said shakily.

Sarutobi frowned. Kakashi was practically sweating underneath all the tension that was present in the room. Deciding that he had finally laid into the man enough, he changed postures. "You will tell your three genin that you have been shuffled back into ANBU, and that they will meet their new sensei in two days at Training Ground 7 at 7am. You, on the other hand will report to ANBU HQ tomorrow morning at 5am for physical conditioning. Understood, Hatake?"

Kakashi stumbled over his words again, repeating himself from earlier. "H, hai, Hokage-sama."

Feeling satisfied with himself, Sarutobi got up from his desk, yearning to stretch out his legs again. "Dismissed." As he turned around to look outside his window again, he heard Kakashi leave the office, nearly tripping on a couple of occasions in a nervous outbreak.

***Flashback end***

Right, he had to go report to the ANBU now. He shuddered at the thought of the conditioning he would have to go through. It was ruthless and demanding, and the will that he had cultivated to keep up with the rigorous exercises had tapered off over the years as his laziness became a domineering part of his psyche. He knew he needed to break the habit, but it most definitely would not be a pleasant process.

**---**

"As the smoke cleared, the villiainous Yami-nin stood over his wounded opponent, a knife pointed at the blonde's head. 'Give up!' said Yabun to the Ame-nin, as his face contorted into a wild grin at the thought of subduing his foe.

'Can I just say one thing...?' the Ame-nin said, arm pressed down onto his knee.

Yabun didn't hesitate in his next action, as he slammed his arm into Naruto, pinning him against a tree. 'I don't want to hear it...now die!'

What he didn't expect was for his sworn enemy to start in a cocky manner, saying 'You should give up...' and then disperse in a cloud of white smoke. Paralyzed in fear, he was unable to respond to a voice that started talking right next to his ear, 'Trying to make me give up.'

_Kage Bunshin?! _was all that Yabun had time to think as he felt a blow to the back of his head and saw the surface of the branch they were standing on quickly approaching him. Knocked out, he would be tied up by Naruto to later be interrogated."

"Tou-san?"

"Yes, what is it, Saisei?"

"What does 'intewwogahted' mean?"

Naruto, currently sitting in a chair while reading to his son who was tucked into bed, couldn't help but smile, amused at the cute face his adopted son had made as he scrunched his nose up in confusion at a big word. Kitsunes were unnaturally quick at understanding language, which was why Saisei already knew such words as 'subdue', 'hesitate', and 'paralyze', but there were still many words he would trip over. "It means that you ask somebody else questions, in a forceful manner. "

"Oh." Was all Saisei had to say, before his ears twitched, and he went onto another question. "Why does that man in the story have the same name as you?"

The lemon-haired boy held back a frown and a breath at that, not wanting to worry the former demon lord reincarnated. He had already figured out that his parents must have used _Legend of the Gutsy Ninja_ as a basis for his name, with his father honouring his sensei Jiraiya. Too bad that faith had been misplaced. However, he didn't want to explain this to Saisei now, especially after he had gotten back from being away for nearly a month. Instead, he smoothly lied. "Ah, that's just a coincidence, Saisei. Lots of people share the same name in the world."

"Wow!" was what Saisei had to say in response with an energetic tone, envisioning the world. He hadn't met very many people in his lifetime; Naruto only let a few members of the Akatsuki that he trusted in on the secret of Saisei's existence (most believed he had just extinguished the Kyuubi when done absorbing his yokai), and even fewer meet him. When Naruto snuck him out the last time he had gone to Ame was the first time in his life that Saisei had seen the outdoors, something which Naruto took great pleasure in showing his son.

Ruffling the red hair and ears on top of Saisei's head, Naruto leaned back, "Well then, ready for some more _Legend of the Gutsy Ninja?_" Seeing his son's head snap back, he took the cue to continue reading.

A few minutes later, Naruto looked up from his book, and saw that the kitsune had fallen asleep. Letting a genuine smile cross his face again, he left the book on his chair, turned off the lights and locked the door behind him before exiting out.

---

The next morning, Naruto was out and about early, his clone living in his apartment on the surface having gotten a visit from Kakashi two nights beforehand, who explained that he had been put back into ANBU, that Team 7 was getting a new sensei, and when and where he was to go. The clone had passed the info along the psychic link that Naruto had mastered between himself and enhanced Kage Bunshins, giving him some preparation time.

Walking through the bustling city, Naruto thought over the info he had received from the ANBU Kawauso on who his new sensei was. What was surprising was the unique ability that Tora-28 possessed. Doubtlessly it was a failsafe measure meant to be used to keep Naruto under control if required.

Naruto wasn't quite worried about that. He had already absorbed all of Kyuubi's yokai, but actually converting it to chakra was an entirely different thing altogether, and could take another couple of decades. It was still useful, however; he could pull out yokai tails, though the corruptive effects of the yokai would still feed him bloodlust even without Kyuubi's soul. However, without the Kyuubi in the seal, Mokuton (or any chakra seal) would simply not be as effective.

Moreover, he was worried about how observant his new sensei might be. If this 'Tenzo' thought Naruto was acting suspicious, he would more than likely begin to investigate, which would force Naruto to cut back on his Akatsuki activities out of fear he would be discovered, and activate a fallback measure to temporarily delegate some of his responsibilities to other members. This close to the invasion it was a dangerous possibility.

Blinking, Naruto slowly brought his spatial awareness back to the world around him, away from the heavy thinking in his head. He found that he was already in Training Ground 7. Surprisingly enough, Sakura was training hard, trying to master her chakra control by walking on the small body of water the grounds had to offer. Sasuke, who seemed confident that this new sensei of theirs would be punctual, was sitting with his back up against a tree, in a brooding pose, conserving his energy.

Naruto walked over to the dark-haired Uchiha, and sat himself down next to his teammate. "So," the whiskered genin drawled, "What do you hope our new sensei will be like?"

Sasuke, never one to mince words, simply said, "I hope he's strong."

Any further conversation they might have had was broken as the sound of a snapping twig was heard. Turning their heads around, they saw a man walking towards them. He was tall, just about the height that Kakashi was (if one didn't count the goofy gravity defying-hair that the scarecrow-like Hatake had), with brown hair and a green jonin vest on. The oddest thing about him was his hitai-ate; instead of the standard metal band that most people had, he seemed to wear a half-mask that covered the forehead, and went down covering his outer cheeks, resembling the style of the Nidaime Hokage's own hitai-ate. The first thing one noted about him, truly proving that first appearances could be deceiving, for this man possessed the power of the legendary Mokuton.

"Team 7?" he asked, although it was clear that it was not a question. "I am your new sensei, Yamato. First I need to get to know you. After that, training will begin."

**---**

In his office, Hiruzen Sarutobi was mulling over a report that he had recently received from Jiraiya, who himself had gotten some important intel from Itachi, regarding the group of elite bounty hunters that Itachi had joined for the unproclaimed purpose of becoming a mole. What had initially been thought to just be a group of missing nin banding together to make some money seemed to be far more dangerous; rather, it was just a front for an even more powerful criminal organization, one tentatively named the Hakubo. An ominous name, 'Nightfall'. To round off the intimidation brought on by the title was the list of high A-Class and S-Class ninjas that Itachi had so far discovered; there was of course, Kakuzu of Taki, who had gone toe-to-toe with the Shodai Hokage and killed the entire ruling council of Taki off before going nuke-nin. However, there was also Deidara Kurei, a demolition's specialist from Iwa, Fuchi Ankoku, a bear of a man known for his legendary swordsmanship who was a former member of the Pillars of Iwa, and Kisame Hoshigaki, another well-renowned swordsman who had fled Kirigakure after killing several minor lords of Water Country.

Rounding off the known list were Zetsu of Kusa, a wildcard as far as his strength went but was known to have taken Earth manipulation to another level, damaging his psyche and altering his body in the process, and Kasumi Yume of the nomadic Yume clan, the runaway genjutsu prodigy princess of one of the few clans that didn't join a shinobi village that was renowned for their naginatajutsu. And that was not including some of the members that Itachi had been unable to get any real info on, such as the leader and his two subordinates. Additionally, they were _still_ recruiting – Sarutobi had earlier given Kakashi a lecture about how Hakko would not have had much time to develop his skills, being on the run all the time. The possibility of somebody who had been on the run but still capable of defeating Kakashi being recruited by Hakubo and given a chance to further develop was disturbing.

But it was Hakubo's goals that disturbed the Sandaime Hokage. They wanted to capture all of the jinchuuriki and extract the bijuu from their hosts into a sealing statue of sorts. With the power of the bijuu behind them, they basically could control the Elemental Nations, if not the entire world.

That threw a wrench into Sarutobi's plans, however. When his successor (and predecessor) Namikaze Minato sealed the Kyuubi no Kitsune into his son Naruto, Sarutobi had quickly had Jiraiya place a pair of seals on the newborn blonde; one was to impair his development emotionally, physically and mentally, while the other was to be used on the occasion to install suggestive impetus. The reasoning behind it was simple; as Naruto grew up, odds were that he would face many enemies due to his being the vessel of the Kyuubi. More likely than not some of these enemies would be far beyond Naruto's abilities (no matter how hard the flaxen-haired child trained with or without an impairing seal), and to bring the fight down to par Naruto would have to summon Kyuubi's yokai to fight. However, if Naruto lost himself too his emotions or his enemy was too strong, the boy might overdraw on Kyuubi's yokai and turn on Konoha. An unskilled Naruto that simply tossed around Kyuubi yokai was something that they could defeat, whether it was with the Mokuton or through the use of chakra seals such as those Jiraiya had developed. A Naruto who had been trained and was competent on his own that turned on Konoha could lay waste to them, or at least cause a significant amount of damage before he could be stopped. There was no bearing for trying to get him to control his emotions – the possibility that he would naturally be induced to bloodlust simply by the Kyuubi's influence was far too great to risk.

But now, Hakubo came along. Sure, Naruto would have probably gone up against opponents that far outstripped him in skill, but to face off against an entire organization composed of A-rank and S-rank missing nins? The only way to keep Naruto from them was to keep him in the village, and that simply wouldn't do; for one, Konoha needed the intimidation factor of having the strongest bijuu on their side, and secondly, by the time Hakubo might come to retrieve Naruto, it was entirely possible they could have the first eight bijuus under their control, and able to channel their power.

So no, now Sarutobi would have to reject the plan that he had of leaving Naruto untrained, and get Naruto up to speed and develop him, in the hopes that when Hakubo finally came for Naruto, Naruto's training combined with the Kyuubi's power would be able to stop any offenders. He had assigned Tenzo to take over for Kakashi primarily to fast-track Naruto's training; Sasuke had his clan to turn to (not to mention he could ask most jonin in the village for private training and get it), and Haruno Sakura had yet to show any signs of real commitment to being a kunoichi. Naruto meanwhile would benefit from the focused training, Tenzo could keep Naruto under control with the Mokuton if it came to it. When Jiraiya came and started training Naruto as Sarutobi had sent a reply back ordering him to, doubtlessly it would reinstall an iron fealty to Konoha in Naruto, who would be glad that he was getting specialized training, from a Sannin of all people.

Of course, Naruto could never know about his heritage. If the boy should find out who his father was, he might become too bitter towards Konoha for not treating him well during his childhood, breaking free of the restraints that had been planted in him by the suggestions through use of the hyperawareness seal. And again, that would be bad. Even now, finding out about the Kyuubi had already caused him to become somewhat more introverted and far more serious, as reports from Kakashi had been suggesting. Soon enough that impairment seal would begin to dissolve, the small size of the seal leading to its relatively short lifetime (at least in comparison to the Kyuubi seal, which would hopefully last for all of Naruto's lifetime, considering it had been enforced by the power of a Shinigami). He highly doubted that it would be reapplied.

Setting the files down on his desk, Sarutobi didn't even need to muse about whether he should release these files to other nations, allies or enemies. He simply wouldn't. First of all, even one other country having these documents increased the chances of Hakubo finding out about said documents, and they would then begin to suspect a spy, which would make it significantly harder for Itachi to gather information. Secondly, if he could keep Naruto's training on the downlow, Hakubo wouldn't feel pressured to capture Naruto as quickly as if they knew he was becoming talented at a fast pace. Third, every other jinchuuriki that was removed from another village was another jinchuuriki that couldn't pose a threat to Konoha. If a bijuu got extracted, then when the Hakubo was finally stopped, Konoha might be able to grab a bijuu or two from the sealing statue mentioned in Itachi's report. Already sealed, it would take little energy and no sacrifice to seal a captured bijuu into a newborn infant. Even if the previous village retrieved their bijuu, they would still have to raise a newborn and train him or her.

In the end, Sarutobi would do what benefitted Konoha. It had been a mistake of his to step down as early as he did to let Namikaze take over the Hokage spot during the dying days of the Third Great Shinobi War – he should have stayed on just a bit longer, and wait until Konoha marched right into Iwa, so he could have wrung more concessions out of Iwa. Instead, Minato had called for a peace only a few weeks after he took office, leaving Iwa plenty of time to rebuild. If not for Akasuna no Sasori and his mediating skills, Iwa could have easily invaded Konoha after the Kyuubi attack and destroyed the Village Hidden Amongst Tree Leaves.

Even though they had backed off then, they were coming for revenge now, in cahoots with his former student. Sarutobi gripped his hand on a staff he kept nearby him at all times, his fingers tensing and turning white with the pressure he was applying. If his former student thought he would have an easy win, he would be in for a surprise. The monkey summoner had been training during the last few months, getting back into shape, taking nutritional supplements to strengthen his muscles and bones. Oh yes, Orochimaru would be in for a major surprise.

**---**

**So...in the latest chapter Sasuke survives again. Seriously, Mifune could get everyone to evacuate the building and drop a nuclear bomb from that the Land of Iron discovered from an excavation from ages past on the building and Sasuke would still survive, and the radiation would somehow mutate him to become even more powerful with no side-effects, except he would get a third eye, which would allow him to use Amaterasu, Tsukiyomi, and Susano'o...AT THE SAME TIME. At this rate Sasuke will start summoning cockroaches. (I hope Kishi doesn't read fanfics or else I might be giving him ideas!) **

**A Sarutobi POV that makes him out to not quite be a total bastard, you can see where he's coming from, but he's still a bastard. The scene at the beginning is mostly Kakashi POV. I hate being so harsh on him, especially since I know at least one thing that I still have to do to him in the future (no, not his death or anything. He'll survive for Part II, but I haven't really planned ahead any specific character actions in Part II yet, just the general gist of what'll happen). A pure fluff scene between Naruto and Saisei that I enjoyed writing (as well as small excerpt from 'Legend of the Gutsy Ninja', with the descriptions being from Naruto's POV), and a short 'Team 7 meets Tenzo' scene.**

**Deidara joined earlier than in canon so he doesn't have the same confrontational attitude towards Itachi, who never forced Dei to join. Even with my alterations towards the situation in Kiri, Kisame still leaves. Fuchi Ankoku and Kasumi Yume are both OC missing nin's. Hakubo is clearly a second front to cover up the Akatsuki.**

**Alright, I promise the next chapter will be the last chapter before the chunin exams start! (though I might end up breaking that promise...) I'm hoping I don't break that promise because if I don't then the chapter right after that one will be goddamned AWESOME!**

**Finally, my end-chapter plea for reviews, but this is slightly different; I was going through my reviews history lately (the reviews I submitted, not the ones I got for my fics). Going through, I see that there are a lot of reviews that I write that usually go for upwards of four or five paragraphs, and two or three isn't that uncommon either. Even the one-line or two-line reviews still try to bring up a point from that chapter (or the whole story overall) and mention something about it. I would prefer that if you do review, if you are one of those who just do 'nice chapter', or 'awesome please update soon!' that you try to add in a little bit extra, even something as small as 'wow Sarutobi was absolutely ruthless in this chapter'. I'm not afraid to take criticism either. Thanks ;).**


	11. Behind Closed Doors

**Chapter Eleven – "Behind Closed Doors"**

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**Welp, I hit 16k hits. Hopefully I'll get over 20k soon. Sorry for the short chapter though.**

**A lot of people have commented about how much of a bastard Sarutobi is. Read 'Loyalty Seal' by Zip0 - it's where I got a lot of my inspiration from for Sandaime's personality (though I made Jiraiya more bastard-like than in that fic), though I didn't do an actual loyalty seal. In my opinion an actual loyalty seal would just be too broken (even with the drawbacks Zip0 has in his story). 'FireStorm' by sun-sky-neighbor (sic) actually has loyalty seals that are even more broken, and while the story's entertaining to read, at some point suspension of disbelief just isn't enough.**

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Naruto was initially wary about Yamato, and to be truthful, he still was. After all, the man was out of ANBU, and he still didn't use his real name, deceiving the other two members of Team 7 to the point that they didn't even realize Yamato was a codename.

His problem was compounded by Tenzo's own Mokuton trait. Much of the Kyuubi's yokai had been drained from the former bijuu, but was kept in storage as the process of converting it to regular chakra was a slow one, and even the converted chakra still shared traits with its former brethren; the Mokuton actively was repressing the yokai and converted chakra just by Naruto being in Tenzo's presence, and it drained him of his natural stamina, making him sluggish.

Still, it helped him out that he should feel sluggish. For all of his natural talent, Kakashi simply hadn't been that observant of the more subtle things going on around him. Tenzo, coming right out of ANBU, would notice if Naruto's movements tended to be a tad smoother than a rookie genin should be capable of, and would investigate. The Mokuton crippled Naruto to an extent, allowing him to hide his talents through his capabilities being lessened.

Not that Tenzo was a bad teacher, though. He was fairly strict, but he knew how to teach. Presently Naruto was sitting on top of Konoha's natural onsens, one that had yet been converted into a commercial onsen, meditating. Nearby he could hear Tenzo lecturing Sasuke on jutsu theory, while Sakura was going through some of the more esoteric chakra control techniques, such as balancing senbon on her fingertips.

Tenzo, or as he would have to call him, Yamato, had instructed Naruto to practice becoming comfortable on water to better control his chakra. The man had given a rather fitting analogy; while most people's chakra was usually calm and peaceful in downtime, fluctuating rapidly only when a person was in a fight-or-flight situation, Naruto's chakra was like his family name, a raging storm looking to break free of its constraints. In battle, Yamato had said, Naruto needed to have a strong hold on his chakra or else it could backfire on him the first time he tried to do something delicate.

Having been on the hot water for ten minutes now, Naruto figured that he had demonstrated a solid mastery of being able to handle the constantly-shifting surfaces of low-density liquid surfaces, and rose to his feet, intent on getting away from the steamy heat and moisture that pervaded his skin, causing his clothes to become damp.

Yamato had seen him coming, and had quickly ended his conversation with the Uchiha heir. "What can I do for you, Naruto?" The older man asked in that not-quite-gruff voice of his.

"Yamato-sensei," Here Naruto bowed his head slightly in deference and respect, "I believe I have managed to accomplish what you wanted for me as far as water-walking goes. I managed to walk and run around for five minutes and sit for another five."

Yamato strummed his lips, thinking. Indeed, he had watched Naruto a bit out of the side of his eyes, and was pleased with what he had seen. He knew Naruto was a red-blooded male, one who was more temperamental than introverted, and would not stand for more 'boring' stuff unless prodded forward with a carrot first. Thinking it over for a few seconds, he thought about Naruto's namesake; Uzumaki. The Uzumaki clan had long since been vanquished after Whirlpool Country had been taken over by Iwa in the Third Great Shinobi War, but surely the Sandaime would not have given Naruto the name of such a famous clan unless there was a reason for it? Following that logic, Yamato presumed that Naruto most probably had at least some Uzumaki ancestry. Because the Uzumakis were well known for being users of water jutsus, Naruto likely had some alignment to the element of water as well, Kyuubi or not.

"Well, Naruto," Yamato said, "Come with me for a minute." Seeing Naruto perk up, he walked back to the onsen, Naruto following behind. Raising his hands, Yamato put them together in a Tora seal, causing a small amount of water to rise from the onsen, and take form as a duplicate of Yamato. Seeing Naruto wide-eyed, Yamato smiled and began to explain, "The Mizu Bunshin works by infusing a small amount of your chakra into the water, which you can then shapeshift into your clone. It is similar to the Kage Bunshin in the manner that you use chakra to form a shell out of a substance, but Mizu Bunshin requires a fluid to do it. Water is the most common material, and it requires only borderline elemental manipulation to use. Anything beyond that will require practice and familiarization, however."

Naruto let out an incredulous gasp. He hadn't thought to use other fluids with a Mizu Bunshin before. Quickly, he began to brainstorm through various uses for alternate liquids. Yamato was slightly amused at the concentrated look on Naruto's face, and interrupted his thinking. "That said, Mizu Bunshin isn't as powerful as the Kage Bunshin, and with the amount of chakra you have, the generic water-wielding clones won't be really useful, so obviously it's the alternate liquid forms that you will find the greatest use out of." Noticing Sakura over Naruto's shoulders struggling with her senbon, Yamato decided to finish the conversation, "Well, Naruto, I have to help Sakura now. The Mizu Bunshin has the same 'feeling' to shaping it as you would with a Kage Bunshin, so try your best, and ask me if you need any help later on, mmkay?"

---

Wooden doors closing behind him as he walked into the Hokage's office, the gnarled old bandage-covered man walked in, cane held rigidly in his left arm to keep himself upright with dignity. Taking a seat without the Sandaime's permission, the lack of courtesy belying just how much influence he had in the village, Danzo decided to open the conversation with a general comment. "I see you gave the ANBU back an interesting person for their training regimen."

Sarutobi saw fit to respond to that, "Yes, Hatake proved to be lacking as a teacher. A good captain, he might have been once, but an instructor it seemed he definitely was not." That it took Kakashi three months to teach his team tree climbing, after a dangerous C-turned-A-Class mission proved it. "Additionally, he lost the only thing that endeared him to being put in as Team 7's jonin-sensei, though he may regain it soon."

"Oh?" Danzo queried. He of course already knew about Kakashi's lost Sharingan eye, but he was willing to scrounge out for any information he could. He and Sarutobi both had their own sort of partnership; Sarutobi would govern Konoha on a day-to-day basis, passing Konoha off as the 'warm, compassionate' village that so endeared itself to potential clients, while Danzo's Root would stick to the shadows and perform the darker missions. It was a system that had worked for decades, and even Minato had reluctantly let Danzo continue his operations when he had become the Yondaime.

Sipping some green tea that he had his secretary bring in, Sarutobi chose his next words well. He didn't bother offering Danzo any of the tea; the other man was far too paranoid to accept a drink from somebody else. Slamming his cup down onto his desk, letting out a brief sigh of satisfaction, Sarutobi continued on, "Since his time out of ANBU, Hatake has gotten sloppy. Lazy. Unmotivated. It is my hope that by putting him back into ANBU, we will once more have the man who was pushing the line between A-Class and S-Class classification, as opposed to somebody who lost to a low A-Class nuke-nin with no distractions around."

Of course, Danzo remembered seeing that report about the mission to Wave. It was rather fortunate that Aoi Konpeki had happened on-scene. "Have you decided how to recompensate Kumo for saving Hatake and Team 7?"

Sarutobi leaned back in his chair, idly rubbing his eyebrows. "Kumo prematurely rejected our invitation to the Chunin Exams this year." As some villages were wont to do sometimes; every hidden village was always invited to Konoha's Chunin Exams, but many of them, such as Iwagakure, would reject them out of hand every time. The Sandaime was to send out the invitations within the next month, and if intelligence proved right, this year Iwa would accept. "Additionally, a Kumo hunter-nin managed to kill the nuke-nin Kagura, so they will send an envoy shortly to claim a bounty." Pouring himself some more tear, he took a sip before proceeding to talk again. "I am quite well aware that Kumo is sorely lacking in documentation of Earth jutsu, something we have in large numbers from the Uchiha during the war against Iwa, and almost no use for. That should also make up for the bounty payment, as money is something we are losing a lot of to bounties these days."

It was true. Over the last few years many more bounties than usual had been turned in. Only a few months ago Rokusho Aoi had been slain and the Raijin returned to Konoha as proof, and it was quite a pretty penny that Konoha had been forced to pay for the artifact and bounty. Additionally, a group of Ame-nins had recently busted one of Orochimaru's bases in Sea Country, and cashed in on Konoha's policy of money for any information on Orochimaru's whereabouts or current doings, along with the documents they had retrieved from that scientist Amachi. A few of Konoha's missions were also being conceded to the continent's three central Hidden Villages, Amegakure, Kusagakure and Takigakure. While Konoha wasn't exactly cash-strapped, they were running low on their reserves, which Sarutobi needed to conserve to rebuild after the invasion.

The other man sat there for a few minutes, and then asked, "What about the Chunin Exams themselves? It's fairly obvious he wants the Sharingan, so he might feel inclined to abduct one right out of the Forest of Death."

Sarutobi was prepared for the question, and handed Danzo a sheaf of papers. "That is most of the information for security during the beginning of the chunin exam season. You'll find the patrol times, the gate procedures, hotel rooms assigned to the visiting genin teams, measures being taken to ensure the genins are who their i.d. says they are, and so forth." Here, he narrowed his eyes to indicate how serious he was. "I want your Root forces to be on full patrol during the exams. Scout out any weak points in the village to shore them up, find any suspicious characters, and locate any points outside Konoha the enemy might mobilize from."

Danzo leafed through the papers, looking over the details. While doing so, he put forward another question that he was curious about, "Have you alerted Suna yet about the invasion?" He was a big stickler for autonomy, and didn't like the idea of Suna ninja possibly coming into Fire Country to defend against Iwa and Oto; allies were too capable of turning on each other, and Suna might find an opening to send in deep-cover agents if they were asked to bring any ninja for the invasion.

"Already have that covered, my friend," Sarutobi responded. "What Suna will be bringing in will be in quality, not quantity. The Yondaime himself will be there." That was self-explanatory. Sasori had killed hundreds of Iwa shinobi in the war, it wouldn't be beyond him to kill another couple hundred more in a single battle. "So will be Kuroisuna no Akira, Kiirosuna no Sabaten, Baki no Yaiba, and a handful of others of Suna's best under the guise of jonin-senseis and bodyguards, as well as the Ichibi jinchuuriki."

That was acceptable to Danzo. Bring in enough high-level men who could each easily make a dent in the larger numbers of the enemy forces. Unless Suna was in on the plot to destroy Konoha as well. If that were the case, however, nothing short of unleashing some of the most powerful, most dangerous kinjutsu that the Leaf had ever recorded would be able to repel two major villages and a minor one. Certainly, however, Danzo wouldn't give his allies any leeway on the issue of trust.

Grabbing the papers the Hokage had proffered him, Danzo pushed his chair out, and stumbled to get up. Making a nod to the Hokage out of respect, he turned, leaving the room, already making plans in his head to set up for a counterattack during the invasion.

---

While it was true that Ame was protected against foreigners through the aggressive policy of a closed border, Yahiko still took no chances when it came to the safety of his own family. In public, he was still a bachelor, and Konan was merely one of the ministers who helped run Ame, one who happened to be a childhood friend. Konan took 'lengthy reconnaissance trips' from time to time to hide her away in a concrete underground bunker hidden within the depths of Amegakure. Whenever Konan had her own duties to attend, it was one of their most trusted female friends from the old band that deposed Hanzo that the husband and wife charged with raising and training their children in the hopes that they could one day come into the public eye, capable of fending off any political intrigue or assassination attempt.

Today, he was training his firstborn and oldest son, Sho (Nagato had originally suggested the couple name him Chibi in memory of their old dog – Konan had hit him over the head for even suggesting it), on one of the rare days that he wasn't caught up in work. The ten-year-old, who had taken to being a lanky carrottop much like Yahiko himself, was going through some katas of a rather vanilla taijutsu style common to Ame, and was doing rather proficiently with it.

Executing the next batch of movements in the form, Sho finished with a hard kick, before turning to Yahiko and bowing. The prodigal son then dropped all pretense of seriousness, and as excitement crossed over Sho's face, he gushed out, "Oi! How was that, tou-san?!"

Amusement flickered over Yahiko's otherwise stern face at his son's antics. "That was quite fine, sochi. You did an excellent job." Watching Sho let loose on a burst of energy, Yahiko made a split-second spontaneous decision. Rising up from the kneeling position he had used for observation, he made a query that stopped Sho in his throes of activity. "How would you like to start learning kenjutsu soon?"

Shock froze Sho's face for a few seconds, before he responded in similar form, jabbering out his words quickly, "Would I?! Of course, tou-san! When can we begin?!"

"Not today," Yahiko said, frowning, "But fairly shortly. I will have to fetch some wooden practice equipment, and see what style of sword you work best with." Yahiko himself had used a shinken while fighting as the leader of the rebellion. Given Sho's current size, he thought that his son would work best with a wakizashi or a pair of tantō, both being on the short and light side.

Remembering his manners, Sho calmed down, and then said, "Thank you very much, tou-san." Then, as an add-on, he also said, "With this, I'll be one step closer to defeating Naruto-aniki."

That was unlikely, Yahiko mused. When he had initially had Naruto brought here to Ame, the young Sho latched onto Naruto as an older brother figure after a short while, and had met him again and again as the blond occasionally returned to Ame for official duties. However, the difference between Sho and Naruto was staggering; even if they both had the same potential, Naruto would still be far more dedicated to achieving it. It was simply a matter of will; Naruto had dedicated himself to the lifelong pursuit of peace in the world, and knew well that he would have to sharpen his skills to keep the peace when he became immortal. Naruto had been shunned throughout his whole life, and that had caused a natural drive to succeed and become strong. Sho simply didn't have the same circumstances; growing up in a loving household, if a bit strained by various duties, could never instill the same motivation, never completely push him to his limits.

But Yahiko still had his paternal pride, that desire of a father to see his children succeed and do the best they can, so he merely nodded in response to Sho's response and said, "That you will be, sochi, that you will be."

---

**Sorry, but I ended up having to split the chapter I originally had planned for into two. I try to keep my chapters between 4-6000 words, with Chapter 3 being the largest at 7000 words. Even though the resulting chapter might have fit in there, I'd still have to split it into two, because the first scene of the next chapter has to be the FIRST scene of a chapter for dramatic effect.**

**Danzo finally makes his appearance. I'm not cliché enough to make him out as most fanfiction authors like to (and even Kishi to some degree) so enjoy the realism :O.**

**Please note: the following section of the author's note has a bit of talk about sexual content mixed in with another rant about clichés, so if you're a bit squeamish about reading such things, then skip it.**

**Hmmm, usually I've done a rant or something in the past for my author notes. This time I think I'll focus on something that's fairly narrow in scope; time travel fics, but more specifically, time travel fics that throw Naruto back as a teenager or adult to a few years before the Kyuubi attack, or the Third Great Shinobi War. Even more specific is how despite Naruto's intervention in the natural timeline, the same couples still have the same exact children. Hizashi and his wife magically have Neji, Hiashi and his wife magically have Hinata and Hana, etc., Minato and whoever (Kushina usually, though some fics like to vary by having someone different as Naruto's mother) magically still have a newborn male child on October 10****th****. Let me put it this way; in the average human male ejaculation, there are around 80 to 120 million sperm cells, each with their own randomized division of chromosomes, with 53% odds of an X-chromosome. Despite the odds, the children are still somehow the EXACT SAME.**

**That said, if somebody reads this, and you're doing a time travel plot that goes to shortly before the Kyuubi attack/TGSW, please try to spice it up a bit. Say, something like the newborn Naruto has red hair and green eyes instead of yellow-blonde hair and blue eyes and he has a lighter tan of skin, or a male character (say, Konohamaru) turns out to be female instead of male. About the only thing that really is understandable as a constant is Naruto being born on October 10****th**** for dramatic purposes.**

**With that mini-rant out of the way...hmmm...something else to filler up this end chapter Author Note. Well, I'll admit that sometimes I go along with clichés, but I like to try and minimize them as much as I can (Sakura bashing) and where possible, subvert them (I'm positively chuckling because I know quite easily just how much I'll subvert a cliché at the end of Part I).**


	12. Five Minutes to Midnight

**Chapter Twelve – "Five Minutes to Midnight"**

**---**

**Welcome back! After finally getting Chapter 5 of 'Rise of a Kitsune' published, I'm back to AMND. Right now we're at over 26k lifetime hits, 196 Favorites and 179 Alerts!  
**

---

***Two Years Ago***

_The lime-green haired girl spun her kunai for flourish as she initiated a conversation with the blonde Yahiko had pointed out to her as being the former jinchuuriki of the Kyuubi while they had toured around Akatsuki's base. "So, you're Kyuubi's container, huh?"_

"_I was," he corrected. Although later on he would reveal to her the exact details of Kyuubi's detail with him that allowed the kitsune demon to reincarnate, he felt it wise to let her stay under the impression that the Kyuubi had recently departed to Makai. "My name is Uzumaki Naruto, of Konoha. And you are?" He asked, holding out his hand to shake. He had already been informed of the arrival of the Nanabi container, as well as shown her profile, but he felt it best to make proper introductions nonetheless._

_Pupilless violet eyes leaned in and stared into cerulean blue, unnerving the owner of the latter pair, who was keenly reminded of the trademark light lavender eyes of the Hyuuga clan. The chocolate-skinned chunin seemed to like what she saw, as she shook his hand. "My name is Amane Fū, chunin of Taki." Something seemed to click in her thoughts, as her eyes widened. "Uzumaki? As in the Uzumaki Clan of Whirlpool?!"_

"_The very same," he nodded, not realising what he was setting himself up for. "My mother was Uzumaki Kushina, one of the few survivors from the Third Great Shinobi War, who immigrated to Konoha after the destruction of Whirlpool."_

"_Hmm..." she said, partly to herself, partly to herself, partly to him. "I'm afraid to ask...but what happened to her?"_

_Naruto wasn't sure whether or not she was being rude. On the one hand if she wasn't dense as a brick, something which her countenance hadn't yet lead to suggest, then his earlier tone would have lent itself to mean his mother was dead. On the other hand, she seemed to at least be trying to be polite in making conversation, even if it was in such a sensitive issue. "She's dead." Was all he had to say, before adding, "She died the night I was born, from labour stresses."_

"_Oh." The kunoichi from Taki didn't seem to know what to say for a few seconds, but got back into it quickly, deciding to empathise with her comrade. "I was born towards the tail end of the last war. My father was a shinobi , and the one who I took after in looks, while my mother was a civilian." Her eyelids drooped down, thinking about something that never was and never could be. "My father died a few months after I was born, shortly before the war ended. I was told that my mother had postpartum depression and after learning of her father's death, she...she..." Here she began to choke, her face turning red, as the sudden rush of what-could-have-beens threatened to overwhelm her.  
_

_A hand gripped her shoulder in comfort, prompting her to look back up at her new companion. "You're rather open, aren't you? I would have thought Taki would have trained their ninjas to hide their emotions better."_

_Red still dominated her face's coloring, but this time it was of a different cause, as her teeth grinded at the implied insult. "And I would have expected the invincible Konoha to teach its shinobi to have some tact!"_

_Naruto was definitely taken aback by that. He had seen angry kunoichi from his classes before, but none of them were quite like this. Flushing a red to match his companion's, he came back with the quickest thing he could think of. "Well technically I'm not a ninja quite yet, I'm still in the academy." As soon as the words spilled out, he realised it to be the wrong thing to say._

_The lime-haired girl exploited her opportunity, as she hunched down slightly and pinched Naruto's cheek before he could swat her away. "Aww, , does poow little Nawuto need a diaper change?" It would have been quite bizarre to any observer just how quickly the conversation changed, from being dramatic, to outright hostility, to unfriendly teasing.  
_

_Having already made a misstep, Naruto was prone to making another one. "You only look a few years older than me! Unless you want me to call you old hag?" Seeing Fū stiffen in her position, he quickly decided to backtrack in his position, only to dig himself inside an even deeper hole. "Ah, or maybe I should just call you Fū-chan?"_

_For all his vaunted training that he had received from the elites of Amegakure, as well as his own self-training in Konoha, he barely saw it coming. A moment later, he was sprawled out on the ground. "Don't call me Fū-chan!" was all his attacker had to say before storming off._

Wow_, Naruto thought to himself, rubbing his cheek where he had been punched, hard. _She's just like that Sakura girl. Except actually competent and dangerous._ Silently, he was grateful that the old fox was no longer around, or else the Kyuubi wouldn't have let him live this one down. He just hoped he wouldn't be so irrational when he came into full-blown puberty and had to deal with hormones.  
_

---

The man known as Tenzo, currently in public underneath his codename Yamato, looked over his genin team from above, perched on one of the trees that had been grown by the Shodai Hokage nearly a century ago. For what one might consider to be hand-offs, Team 7 was actually a very good team when they put their mind to it. Tenzo didn't baby them; he had told them the first day that he was there to train them, and if they didn't like the drills and exercises he laid out for them, they could go to the Hokage's office and resign.

That of course had been meant for the Haruno, whose file he had read up on from the Academy and from Kakashi-senpai's own reports and found that she was a clear-cut fangirl with potential. Uchiha Sasuke wouldn't quit, and Uzumaki Naruto _couldn't_ quit, because nobody would let a 'weapon' stop being a weapon. Thankfully, the pinkette had stayed on; if he had to replace her with another genin, he would have to push them through new teamwork exercises to get them used to each other. Even if there were still problems with this team and the animosity each member held towards his or her two teammates, it was still better than having to start over again.

Eyeing the Uchiha clan heir, Tenzo had to admit that the boy was talented, but his psyche profile suggested that far too much of it was going to waste. Sasuke from what he gathered seemed too prone to letting his emotions get the best of him; he would be the type to charge in recklessly if provoked, and it seemed the very mention of his brother still managed to set him off. Tenzo had done what he could to correct the problem by focusing on self-discipline exercises, but it was still sufficient enough of a problem that the Mokuton-wielder was thinking about recommending Sasuke to a therapist.

Letting his eyes stray to his last student, the former ANBU narrowed his vision. Uzumaki Naruto was hard to keep track of. Tenzo could easily sympathize with Naruto, not knowing who his parents were, and having something horrible thrust upon him as an infant. However, he also knew that Naruto got the worse hand of the two; at least Tenzo had been a valued commodity, was raised in the ANBU system (as none outside of Konoha could know of the existence of another Mokuton user, including the man who had 'created' him), and had no prejudice to deal with. Naruto had practically been thrown to the wolves and scorned and hated since his birth.

Tenzo had been one of the few ANBU assigned to watch over Naruto during his early days, though it wasn't on a 24-hour basis. When Naruto was five years old, Tenzo felt an odd change in Naruto's chakra. Originally, he had chalked it up to the possibility of the seal that kept the Kyuubi locked away in the boy's stomach beginning to do its job of filtering (as in the early years the seal was operating at minimal capacity while it allowed Naruto's own personal chakra to develop before it would run counterpoint to the Kyuubi's poisonous yokai in greater amounts), and left it at that. The Hokage had similarly agreed to leave it alone for the time and adopt a wait-and-see approach. One year later, however, Naruto's chakra had again taken a turn for the unusual, and the quality of the chakra began to change; while the intensity of it remained the same, the chaos that had been naturally inherent in the odd mixture of yokai and chakra had begun to lessen. Where it could previously be likened to a hurricane, now, it could be compared only to a weaker storm.

From then on, the Sandaime had decided to increase surveillance on the young Uzumaki, and had even arranged for a mind probe by Yamanaka Inoichi. Inoichi had reported being unable to gain entry to the jinchuuriki's mind, as the barriers that were up were too great for him to pass. It was an odd phenomenon, but it most likely was a result of being the Kyuubi jinchuuriki; Konoha knew very little about jinchuuriki, never having had one before now, and the Kyuubi never having been contained before the Yondaime sealed him away by summoning the Shinigami. Suna certainly wouldn't hand over any of their research on the jinchuurikis of the Ichibi, either.

Regardless of past events, the Hokage had ordered him, Tenzo, to rigorously train both Naruto and Sasuke; neither would back down from a challenge, and they would both prosper from it. The Sandaime apparently wanted Team 7 to be the trump card team during the Chunin Exams, the team that would show off and present the talent of Konoha's next generation.

He was ANBU, even if he was currently out of the program. He would stirve to meet his objective, and he would do it without letting any obstacles prevent him.

---

Mikoto let out a sigh as she reflected over the last few months. First, her second son Sasuke had become a genin, under the Copycat Nin Kakashi. It hadn't been easy weaning him off of his revenge kick, and, truth be told, he still wanted to kill Itachi. That had left Mikoto stuck in between a rock and a hard place; it was only recently that she had realized her eldest's master plan, that Itachi _wanted_ Sasuke to kill him, to 'avenge' those clan members who had lost their lives to the elder brother, but she was afraid that the moment it occurred, Sasuke would be set down on a dark path he would be unable to turn from. Itachi might have been good at planning but his awareness of the potential consequences was shit.

She had high hopes that Sasuke's new jonin instructor would be able to set him straight. From what she had heard, this 'Yamato' was a serious, all-business shinobi, who had been taken straight out of the ANBU to replace Kakashi as Team 7's jonin-sensei. She had high hopes that he would be able to continue to teach Sasuke a diverse set of skills, while at the same time enforcing discipline. Sasuke had other duties to live up to as the clan heir, and if he was to be the clan head, he could not go gallivanting off at the slightest mention of Itachi or hint of the raven summoner's presence.

Speaking of Kakashi, that man had recently come down to her with a request from the Hokage's office. Due to her status as the widow of the former Uchiha clan head, she was the de facto head until Sasuke took over; without the clan elders who had worked with Fugaku around, she was the sole decision-maker for politics in the clan. Unwittingly, she had come to many of the same conclusions as the Sandaime Hokage had; Hatake Kakashi had done more to advance the reputation of the Sharingan than any dozen of the rank-and-file Uchiha ever had. Keeping his reputation as the 'Copycat Ninja' and not 'Hatake Kakashi' was imperative for the Uchiha bloodline to continue to be feared up until the newest generation of Uchiha could redeem themselves for the attempted coup and strike fear into the hearts of the enemies of Konoha.

That said, she had given him the left Sharingan eye of Shisui Uchiha, and later today would stop off by the hospital to give notes on the bloodline to the surgeon who would transplant the eye so Kakashi could turn his new Sharingan eye on and off with ease. Kakashi would have to figure out what unique abilities Shisui's Sharingan had on his own; Shisui had never documented anything about it besides that he had achieved the three-tomoed state, but she had heard in passing that he once mentioned something about being able to influence people's minds. She wasn't sure about that at all, but if it was true, Hatake would hopefully be able to put it to use in battles, but not in the political arena.

Still, something had been bothering her about that. After the Massacre was over, the remaining Uchiha adults staked their claim to the Sharingan eyes that had been left around. All of the eyes were accounted except for one; Shisui's right eye. That troubled her. It couldn't have been taken out in the river, because they had retrieved Shisui's body between his 'suicide' and the killings, and at that time Shisui had both eyes still. She wasn't sure if the Hokage knew about it or not; if he did, then confronting him was most certainly not a smart idea. She understood well enough that the remaining third of the Uchiha had been left alive as a warning and act of mercy in one, and trying to push him over an eye he might have appropriated was not a good idea.

For now, Mikoto would stay low, and wheedle her way back into good graces of others. She wasn't a very prideful person, or somebody who particularly desired power, but she had her dignity. The 'act of mercy' doubtlessly was because the elders still wanted to be able to wield the Uchihas as one of the many weapons Konoha held. The Uchiha would never again do something so foolish as to plan another coup d'etat, but the Sandaime and his cronies, or their successors would learn that a weapon could turn on its wielder.

---

***Two Months, Two Weeks Later***

---

"Gather around, Team," Yamato said to his trio of genin after another rigorous day of training; this day in particular was focused on applications for ninja wire, a nifty tool that often got glossed over by most shinobi and shinobi-in-training, but could be lethal when used properly in trap-making thanks in part to its inherent near-invisibility.

He was pleased with the results over the last few months. Sakura had taken some work, including a few drastic moments, but he had gotten far with her; the first time he had overheard her mentioning skipping breakfast, he had held her down and forcefed her rations, insisting that she eat properly. After that she had begun to eat her breakfasts and eat after training and eat dinners without fail, wary of letting a similar embarrassing incident occur while her self-proclaimed crush was nearby. She was still a fangirl, but Yamato used her ideal of Sasuke as motivation to get her to take her training seriously.

Of course, while he took pride in his work on Sakura, he knew that it would be Sasuke's and Naruto's results that the Sandaime would be interested in. He doubted that the Uchiha would unlock the third tomoe in each Sharingan eye for at least a few years, unless he was thrown into a harrowing life-or-death combat situation before that, but Sasuke was making due progress in developing his skills nonetheless. Yamato had worked on improving his body first, making him more agile, nimble on his feet, and his body more flexible, before puberty inevitably began to harden his body. He strayed away from teaching elemental jutsus for the time, figuring that somebody more experienced in Katon and, surprisingly, Raiton jutsus would need to help the black-haired young teenager out. He had also drilled Sasuke in battle tactics, giving him multiple scenarios for him to come up with solutions to emerging relatively unscathed from.

It was Naruto that was a slight problem. He had been puzzled for a while when the Yondaime's legacy seemed to show up in the morning, and tire out quicker than his male teammate, despite multiple reports to the contrary of his legendary stamina. It had taken him a few weeks before, embarrassed, he came to the solution that it had been his own presence and the natural factor of the Mokuton that was causing it. After thinking it over, he decided that the best solution was to stick with the situation, while thinking up of several half-truths to give the boy if he ever asked his sensei if he knew anything about his sluggishness. That way, Naruto would eventually get used to the sluggishness, and when he was freed of this restriction on his energy, he would hopefully be the better for it.

He just hoped that the compensation the jinchuuriki got would help him through the chunin exams.

"What's up, sensei?" Naruto seemed to had run himself ragged during the day, if the various dirt smears across his face and clothes, as well as the the sweat dripping from his forehead, were any suggestion. His two teammates came in behind him, ready to hear what the team's instructor had to say.

Yamato took out three green tickets in his hand and waved them about in a flourish to show their importance. "As you may have heard, the Chunin Exams are coming to Konoha. These are your nomination forms to enter." Surprisingly, Naruto didn't jump around with a wild 'Yatta!' or anything o the sort, instead opting to stiffen his body a bit, his face taking on a more serious expression. Good, that helped affirm his peace of mind over entering Team 7 in an exam that was potentially more fatal than usual. Still, he felt he needed to give some due warning.

"However," he said, passing a form out to each of his three students. "I should warn you: for whatever reason, Iwagakure accepted Konoha's invitation this year and is sending three teams to the chunin exams." He narrowed his eyes and gave them a stern expression that he had accidentally created while developing his infamous spook face. While it was unintentional, it still worked wonders in getting its victims to pay attention. "The exam is always divided into three different portions. I cannot tell you about the first two, but the last will always be an elimination tournament, and the participants can kill with diplomatic immunity. If either of the first two exams happen to be a survival test, then people can also kill during the duration of the exam." There. He skirted the rules imposed upon instructors enough to give them the information they needed, but not enough to outright violate any of them. "Sasuke, I don't think I need to tell you that you are a target."

He got a "Hnn" for an answer, but he wasn't done yet. "Also, Konoha's exam requires teams of three to enter it. That means if you want to enter, then all three of you need to be at Room 301 at the Ninja Academy in a week's time at nine hundred hours, as your form will tell you." If he had been Kakashi, doubtlessly he would not have mentioned that first piece of info, hoping instead to let teamwork carry the day, but he was not Kakashi. He had drilled them hard enough that they had finally made their own bonds through similar experiences of exhausting training and perseverance, so he knew Sakura would go along quite easily.

"Any questions?" The genetic descent of the Shodai asked. Looking around, he observed his female protégé chewing on her lip, and decided to ask, "What do you think, Sakura?"

"Uh, sensei," The pinkette responded in a nervous tone of voice, "Do you know if any of our classmates are entering the exam as well?"

Yamato nodded his head to affirm his knowledge. "Teams Eight and Ten have both been nominated by their respective senseis, but whether they enter is up to them or not." Looking around again, he asked once more, "Any more questions?" Meeting with silence from the trio, he concluded the meeting. "Very well then, if you have no more questions, then be here for practice at 5am tomorrow." With that, he walked off, leaving the trio behind.

"Who all did pass from our class, anyways?" Naruto asked, genuinely curious. He had been far too busy with planning for the invasion to pay much attention to the other recent graduates, something he was reprimanding himself for – even the most insignificant piece of information could prove to be useful, and who graduated and on what team formulas was more than insignificant. Having had little interaction with his former classmates in the past eight months, he hadn't kept track of who had passed and who had failed.

Sakura came to the rescue, as she started numbering off the teams that had passed. "Team One, with Ami, Ken and Masashi passed. Team Two, Minato, Yukari and Junpei passed. Team Three failed. There was no Team Four assigned, for whatever reason. Team Five, Soji, Yosuke and Chie passed. Team Six, Kanji, Rise and Naoto passed. Then there's us. Team Eight, Hinata, Shino and Kiba passed. Team Nine is an experimental all-kunoichi team with Yukiko, Fuuka and that strange girl Aegis, and they were passed automatically. Finally there's Team Ten, with Shikamaru, Choji and that Ino-bunta!"

Sasuke seemed not to care much for the information, as he left shortly thereafter, stranding Sakura with Naruto. Naruto quickly scanned through the list of classmates in his head. The Hyuuga Clan was the big one there, with the heiress graduating this year (inwardly he scowled, before brightening up at the thought that Hinata had less time to stalk him), but the Inuzuka Clan was also on the large side, and the second-in-line had graduated as well. The next generation of the Ina-Shika-Cho was also on there, probably as a CIA team, while the blue-haired kid he first took a notice to because he shared the same first name as the Yondaime had passed; that kid was definitely worth looking at, as he was an excellent jack-of-all-trades, who would do well in bolstering what looked to be a general assault team.

He was surprised Naoto had gone onto a team as well: he had presumed she would go into one of the R&D departments, or join the Military Police Force right out of the academy as an intern. Team 6 possessed flair; if their instructor could temper their personalities, they could be a decent fit for an undercover team. There were also several Families present, such as Yosuke Hanataro, whose Family owned several businesses in town under the Juno chain, while Yukiko Amagi's Family owned the Amagi Inn, one of Konoha's most esteemed inns, famous for its hot springs. Truly a year of graduates to look out for.

He made some small talk with Sakura, determined to at least continue thawing the ice that had built up between them over four years of the academy (it was never good to have enemies that you could turn neutral), before excusing himself from the conversation to walk back to his apartment, forgoing the possibility of heading down to the bunker. He only had a couple of weeks to refine his plans for the chunin exams, after all.

---

**My apologies for taking so long in getting back into the groove. That said, I decided to write out a large part of the next couple chapters out beforehand so that you will not have to wait another few weeks for the next chapter, but I would like for a beta to pre-read the next couple of chapters. Not that it's bad English or anything, but I'm fairly sure some of my paragraphs will be hard to follow and understand, and some of my characters seem to be OOC (this chapter needs some editing too, especially the Fū scene, which I'll be doing in the next couple of days). I've been doing history and political science classes for the last little while, and I can easily adjust from a more casual form of writing like in here to a formal tone of writing (no contractions, dry, essay-writing) but it's difficult to go the opposite way, so my choices of language is probably a bit screwy, as well as some of the plot progression; again, particularly the scene at the beginning. Fū is supposed to be temperamental, but their interaction seems to be a bit forced and her a bit too emotional. I'm no Kishi, I actually like to have my female characters not be clichéd tsunderes.**

**Also, for anyone who's cared to read my profile and look at the summaries of plot bunnies I'm throwing around, you'll be glad to know I've got the first two chapters of 'Flame and Vortex' mostly done.**

**I was a bit on the fence on how to write Mikoto's character, but I think it turned out well. She won't be going against Konoha itself, she's loyal to the Hidden Leaf, but when she goes into the political realm she'll be making constant trouble for the Sandaime and co.  
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**In regards to the last section: I've always believed Kakashi was just trying to put the pressure on Team 7 when he said the genin exam had a 66% failure rate. It's just not viable to fail two thirds of your potential ninja (or even more if you think Gai's team was the only team to graduate from the year above), and a 'teamwork' test is absolute bull since you just threw three people together who might not have had much interaction beforehand. **

**For those wondering what 'Families' are, families are just that; families. Specifically, they are extended families with some ninja background, who usually have somewhere five to thirty ninjas in the family lifetime, and two to fifteen ninjas active at any time. Not quite large or prestigious enough (or possessing a bloodline) to be considered a Clan, but still important enough to be given some status. Some clans have the same number of ninjas as many families would, but they either have lots of money, political influence, some really strong ninja or a bloodline. Hatake and Gekko would both be considered Families in my stories, as Sakumo likely had ninja parents and possibly aunts, uncles or siblings , enough shinobi relatives in any case along with his own prestige to make it a Family.  
**

**Also, some people may have picked up on the cameos from the extraneous teams :O**

**Hmm, I don't have much to rant about this time. That said, I'm curious about something, and wish to ask something of Naruto/harem writers. If you are the kind of person who writes it so that a clan in Konoha consists only of the on-screen characters and spouses so that Shikamaru and Choji are the 'only children' of their clan, if you justify Naruto having a harem because of a clan restoration act or whatever, why don't Shika and Choji get one :P?**


	13. Zero Hour

**Chapter Thirteen – 'Zero Hour'**

**---**

**In this exciting episode of 'A Midsummer Night's Dream', The 7 Fighters go to take the first part of the Chunin Exams. Naruto's in the house!**

**I've also done a bit of tightening up of some of the chapters, in particular the last one. A few timeline contradictions here and there, and the flashback scene in the previous chapter reads far better. I think I still need to be more consistent on the spelling of Hyuga though (or is it Hyuuga).**

**It would seem that breaking the 60k word count for the story helped significantly, as I am now at over 32k hits, 226 Favorites and 210 Alerts. This is also the first chapter to break the 8k word count, although just barely in this case. That said, thanks all who read and review!  
**

**---**

_When Nagato first infiltrated six Hidden Villages, he had to start off by building a support base. Roping in Suna and Ame spies alike helped him gather intel at the beginning for those who would be most apt to join underneath the banner of the Akatsuki._

_From Iwa, he had managed to secure the support of demolitions expert Deidara Kurei and a kenjutsu legend, Fuchi Kuroi. They both later went nukenin, however, with the latter taking the surname of Ankoku, so Nagato had to find somebody less suspecting to take over in Iwa. He would find a regular jonin who served an administrative position in the research and development department to head the Iwa Akatsuki brotherhood._

_In Kiri, home to the first jinchuuriki Kage, who had just taken the reigns of the seat from the Nidaime Mizukage, with a second jinchuuriki in his early teens, the red-headed Rinnegan wielder found several more talented kenjutsu wielders. Hoshigaki Kisame and Enshoku Ebicha were the two most influential ones that he could find. However, both of them being members of the Kiri no Shinobigatana Nananin Shu, they were far too high-profile to trust management of the Akatsuki branch to, merely membership. He eventually settled for handing control over to a minor member of the Koori clan._

_Kumo was a tough nut to crack, as both the Sandaime and the Yondaime Raikages were very heavy on their security, and both employed trusted assistants that would never undermine their leaders. Their cults of personalities extended throughout the village, with little dissent to be found. The best fighter Nagato could find was a young prodigy of the Konpeki clan, an archer who had recently figured out how to add elemental manipulation to his arrows. Even Aoi was more warrior than administrator, so the head of the Akatsuki in Kumogakure turned out to be yet another obscure shinobi, this one a kunoichi in her early twenties with the Tokubetsu Jonin status. _

_In Konoha, Nagato had the most trouble picking out a leader to head up the Akatsuki. Eventually, he settled with one Hyuga Chokkan, a branch member who had managed to become powerful even with the Caged Bird Seal present on his forehead. From Konoha there was a wealth of supporters, spawned from the aftermath of the Kyuubi attack, but few were at the skill level of some of the other ninja he had recruited from the other hidden villages. Still, there was a pool of talent, and he took aside several of them to train them, as best as he could with his attention stretched in seven different directions. One such candidate was a Yakushi Kabuto, a young medic-nin in training. When Kabuto was approached by Orochimaru to become a spy for Oto, playing a quasi-double agent, Nagato encouraged him and taught him in the ways of espionage so Orochimaru would be none the wiser. Kabuto would later pick up a minor lackey, one Touju Mizuki, who would also be converted to the Akatsuki._

_As the years went by, when the Kyuubi jinchuuriki Uzumaki Naruto joined Akatsuki, Nagato's alter-ego in Konoha had to slowly ease the idea of his presence to those who called themselves brothers and sisters in the Leaf Village. Particularly resistant at first were the twin chunins, Goma and Kinako Kushi, Mizuki, and the ANBU known as Kawauso, who had refused to give his true name or ever show his true face. It was to be expected; after all, the Kyuubi no Kitsune was the only bijuu who had been able to actively cause destruction in the last century, and Konoha had strong memories of the beast's devastating deeds._

_It had been difficult and at times became a bitter fight, but Naruto had ultimately been able to win over all of those who naturally distrusted them. Nagato however still had trouble with Naruto himself, as the young blonde was often quite bitter and prone to fits of depression at the daunting hand that life had dealt him. Over time, the secret son of the Yondaime had managed to cheer up, though he was far more reserved than he apparently had been beforehand. _

_Eventually, Hyuga Chokkan had to drop his administrative duties with the Akatsuki as the Main House of the Hyuga reared its eye and decided to make him the bodyguard for one of the clan elders. Nagato was forced to take over the duties for Konoha once again just as he was able to wind down his alter-ego in the other villages. It took him another few years before he could finally find somebody who would be able to work as a leader; the jinchuuriki, Naruto Uzumaki. At the time, the boy was nine, and would not be able to make heads or tails out of paperwork._

_However, Naruto exuded a strange sort of charisma, one which even Nagato himself found he was being pulled into. As Naruto had since converted those who disliked him over to his side, Nagato had no worries about internal strife. It was after a year of administrative training that Nagato finally turned his duties over again, this time to the Uzumaki. In hindsight, he would class this decision as a smart one, as many major events of the future would seem to revolve around Uzumaki Naruto._

**---**

Although the Chunin Exams were always an economic boon for the village that was hosting it, the vast majority of foreigners who came to watch always came around for the third and final exam; which was reasonable, considering the first two exams were usually private. Hence, it was with little fanfare that a half dozen teams arrived from Sunagakure three days before the beginning of the exams. The instructors for the team was led by the famed Baki no Yaiba, creator of the Kaze no Yaiba, who had taken on the three children of Sabaku no Akira.

Four of the teams were there for nothing more than to gain experience from the first two exams; it was not expected that they would reach the third. The final two teams, however, were expected to be able to make it to the third and final round. This would mean that Suna genin would be participating in the public tournament, giving the Yondaime Kazekage the pretense he would require to attend the third exam, allowing him to be present for the Oto-Iwa invasion. The Suna teams would make sure to stay out of the general attention of the Konoha public, not wanting to put up with the publicity they would likely get. One Sabaku no Gaara, in particular, went straight to the hotel once he arrived in Konoha for a good nap.

Conversely, there were three Iwa teams, filled up of genin that had been in training for the last three years, who had been through gruelling drills and lectures over the last year. Their orders from their Tsuchikage were clear; kill off as many Konoha genin as they could where legal, with at least one team making it to the finals. While present in Konoha, they had to converse covertly with each other, well aware of the ANBU that would be tailing them at every turn. Meanwhile, the instructors observed and investigated the state of the village when they could get the chance to walk around, in particular taking a look at the walls and trying to identify several sectors where the infrastructure was falling apart.

There was also a single team from the new village of Otogakure. On the surface, nobody paid much attention to it. However, Konoha's top military leaders new that Oto was lead by Orochimaru, and thus had the best of the best of the ANBU watching where they went. Unlike the Iwa teams, who knew they would be watched by ANBU, the Oto team might not realize they were being watched, and could slip something up in their activities, giving the Leaf something to exploit.

Hidden amongst the general commotion was a trio of Kumo ninja, who had to be escorted directly to the Hokage so as not to alert the Hyuga clan of their presence. There, they exchanged the head of Konoha nuke-nin Kagura for a small sum of money along with several scrolls containing mid-level Earth jutsus. After confirming that they were legit, they left the village, joining up into a large complement of a dozen shinobi; after all, the Raikage would never dare send only three ninja into Fire Country territory, not when a war hawk like Danzo was around. It would be far harder to swallow the excuse that fifteen of his finest ninja happened to be ambushed on their way back from Konoha.

Still, there was some buzz over all the foreigners in town. The Sabaku children were the grandchildren of the Nidaime Kazekage, while there were still bitter memories over the Third Great Shinobi War, in which Iwagakure had nearly breached Konoha's walls on a few occasions before being pushed back permanently by the resurging Leaf forces, led by Namikaze Minato. As they could not openly make any move against them, the civilians and shinobi both settled for scowling at the Iwa ninja whenever they walked by.

Finally, word had spread throughout Konoha about the home teams that were participating; in particular, two teams made up entirely of clan heirs and heiresses, along with another team that had the heir to the Uchiha clan, for a total of three rookie teams out of the nine that had graduated in the most recent academy semester. Truly, the final tournament session was bound to be an exciting one.

**---**

Naruto sat up in the bed of his apartment. He looked at the clock on his wall, but didn't really need it – like any fighter from the shadows, he had long since internalized his body's time clock so he could know off-hand the relative time of day.

Within a couple of hours, he would have to be at Room 301 at the Ninja Academy. What happened there and in the exam thereafter would set the stage for the events of the third exam, the tournament, and many years to follow. He had Yahiko-sama's faith in him to uphold, and he would not screw it up. He had fine-tuned his plans with the rest of the Akatsuki, taking care not to let his thirst for revenge screw things up. He admitted it was a character flaw of his, but one he still had difficulty working with. Nevertheless, he was closely hitting zero hour with the Akatsuki's first phase in their master plan, and he would not let it control him.

He thought about what he had been entrusted by Yahiko-sama and Nagato-sama to do. It would be gut-wrenching for him to pull it off. He hated to think in terms of 'the greater good', but that had been what the Akatsuki used to justify all their scheming. Now that it was hitting home for him, it was more personal and harder to live with that phrase, but he would still do it. After all, Inori too accepted that it had to be done.

***Flashback – The Night Before***

Naruto sat across the table from the blue-hue hologram of a man with platinum-blonde hair, his hands clenched together in anxiety. "You know what I plan to do, right?" It was an entirely rhetorical question, so Naruto continued on without waiting for an answer. "I would much like to hear your thoughts on the matter."

The Yamanaka shook his head, though whether it was a casual gesture towards Naruto's request or an unconscious habit to shake off the thoughts that haunted him, the whiskered teenager was unable to tell. "In all honesty, I do not like it. I will be devastated, and it is at times like this I question what we are doing. But," here, with his hands in open sight, he made fists with them, while grinding his teeth. "But, I know it must be done. Peace must be had, even if it is through methods like these, and a small number of deaths here prevents a greater of deaths in the future." Nodding at Naruto, he finished, "Do what you must, Naruto-san. I will not hold it against you or the rest of my brothers and sisters."

Naruto sighed in relief. He genuinely liked Inori, and he did not want for the older man to lose his mind in grief at what several of the members had earlier come up with for the few Akatsuki agents that were participating as genin in the Chunin exams.

***Flashback end***

Dazedly, Naruto shook his head out of his reminiscing. He knew that he was going to be absent from Konoha for the next week thanks to the exams, so he had handed over temporary control to two brotherhood members; Hyuga Chokkan and Uchiha Raika. Their clans may have had a century-long feud, but he knew they would never let such a thing come in between co-administering of Akatsuki duties.

They were also the two who helped to temper his own attitude as they often substituted for his own duties as required, along with Kaiju Seto, and all three of them had done so even before he became the leader of Konoha's Akatsuki brotherhood at the age of ten. He was still naive in some ways; it was his charisma and his boundless determination, as well as a deep-seated paranoia about the brotherhood being discovered being by Konoha, that had made him the leader in the first place.

Compressing his body back and point his legs skyward, he allowed the recoil to push him into the air, off his bed and onto his feet. Satisfied that he was still capable of performing such a movement with ease, he turned to face the far wall. Putting his hands together in a cross-shape, he quietly whispered, "**Kage Bunshin**". With a wisp of smoke, an exact replica of his figure appeared. Knowing what it had been summoned for, the clone stood still, until Naruto dismissed it, with another poof of smoke being left behind.

Naruto cursed at that. He had tried for many years to fine-tune his chakra control to the point where summoning a Bunshin and getting rid of it would make it fade out into non-existence, but even now doing both caused a small amount of smoke to appear as a byproduct. The smoke was a result of leaking chakra, something which he did not like as a sensitive chakra sensor could easily pick up on that.

Shrugging the thought aside in his head for now, he decided to finally make his way out of the apartment, and off to the ninja academy. There, he would meet his teammates and participate in what he knew to be a written exam, proctored by Ibiki Morino, head of Konoha's Torture and Interrogation department.

---

As he climbed the flight of stairs going up from the first to the second floor of the ninja academy, Sasuke Uchiha reflected on the last eight months, since he had graduated from the Ninja Academy and secured a spot on Team 7. He had certainly never expected such a tumultuous ride as he had; on his first C-Class mission out of the village, his team had encountered an S-Class nuke-nin, which ended up with his first sensei losing his Sharingan eye before being replaced. In retrospect, some good at least had come out of that. Kakashi might have been a good ninja, but he was a poor instructor, and Yamato was both punctual and didn't beat around the bush when it came to training and drills.

Coming to the top of the stairs, he observed a sign saying 'Room 301', with several dozen people around it, trying to get in. The door, however, was being blocked by two people in chunin flak vests, who oddly enough looked younger than just about everyone else there, almost as if they had been chibified.

Blinking for a couple of seconds, Sasuke realised just what was going on. Quickly grabbing Naruto and Sakura by the sleeves of their clothing, he subtly moved away from the door, out of the attention of the other genins. Sakura came along quickly, but strangely enough Naruto didn't protest.

That was another thing he had not expected - Yamato had gotten him in to see a therapist. What he had seen wasn't strictly a therapist however, but rather a ninja psychologist who specialized in turning mental disorders to the ninja's advantage. Having brushed up on Sasuke's personal history beforehand, the psychologist had diagnosed him with an inferiority complex in comparison to his brother. When Sasuke had automatically responded he had no such problem, the psychologist questioned him as to whether he was liable to brag and show off in front of others.

That much was true, which Sasuke admitted to the psychologist. With that fact in the open, the psychologist pointed out that doing so gave away his own weaknesses and strengths to the enemy. It was far better, said the doctor, to stay underneath the radar.

It was food for thought that Sasuke had to digest, and he had mused over it from time to time. However, the bulk of his thoughts turned to his male teammate. Naruto. How had the whiskered blonde managed to progress so quickly once they left the academy? The Uzumaki had become stronger in leaps and bounds that Sasuke could barely keep track of, and was nearly comparable to him in overall prowess now. It made him jealous, to be honest, and he often tried to think about how Naruto was doing it.

A sudden epiphany struck his thoughts. Could Naruto have been holding back some of his skills in the Academy? It would explain a lot, as the blonde would slowly let his true strength shine. If that were the case, then just how powerful was Naruto? He hadn't shown any noticeable increase in technique in the last few weeks, so maybe he had already hit his peak. If that were the case, then he would still be weaker than Sasuke was, but he would at least provide a good challenge to fight. Truthfully, he only called the whiskered boy a dobe out of habit these days, as a semi-affectionate form of teasing.

The onyx-eyed boy let that line of thinking pass for the moment, as the trio of thirteen-year-olds that made up Team 7 made it to the real Room 301. Brushing the door open, he entered, Naruto and Sakura behind him. This should be interesting.

---

Naruto barely paid attention when Ino flew through the room and jumped on Sasuke's back, Shikamaru and Choji following behind, his only thought in the manner being gratefulness for Team Ten coming to the exam. While Sakura and Ino continued to banter at each other in a depraved manner, he scanned over the room, taking a quick estimate of over 200 genin. He quickly picked out the three Iwa teams that had come to the exam. He didn't recognize any of them, but he didn't expect to, either; the leaders of Iwa were not foolish enough to send any high-profile shinobi, instead having opted to take nine promising ninjas-in-training out of their own academy and having them go through a gruelling acceleration program so they would be leaps and bounds above other genin precisely for this exam.

Konoha would not know it, but the two teams of Ame genin who had come into the test had been trained for the exact same purpose. With the last hostility between the two nations occurring during the Second Great Shinobi War, they were unlikely to suspect the Rain Country shinobi of anything that occurred in the survival test. It was just a shame that they could not wear the regular Ame headband with the slash through the middle as those loyal to Yahiko in Amegakure usually did; it would draw attention to them here in the Hidden Leaf Village and mark them as supposed nuke-nins.

Vaguely, he noticed Inuzuka Kiba, second-in-line to the Inuzuka Clan, coming up to Teams Seven and Ten. Kiba wasn't somebody to register on his radar. However, his teammate, Aburame Shino, was. While Shikamaru was the lazy genius type, Naruto knew Shino to be quiet, but analytical of everything around him. If there was anyone in his academy class who could have seen through him, Naruto knew that it was Shino, and so he always had to be careful around the bug-user.

"You guys should quiet down," A voice came from behind the three rookie teams. Naruto perked up, recognizing the voice, and turned around to face the white-haired med-nin. Kabuto continued on, drawling his words out, "You guys are rookies fresh out of the academy, right?" Not allowing anyone a chance to answer, he pointed out the two hundred odd shinobi behind him. "All of these ninjas here have at least a year and a half of combat experience, if not more." Dropping his voice down, he added, "And not to mention there are three Iwa teams here."

Kiba piped up at that. "Yeah, so? What has Iwa got to do with this exam?"

Those present that were acquainted with history either facepalmed or gave off a sigh of exasperation at the query. Kabuto practically hissed in response. "You fool! Iwa was embarrassed by Konoha in the last war, and even today they still look for any opportunity to undermine us! Do you know that killing is usually allowed in this exam?"

Kiba paled as the implications sunk in. Naruto tuned out the rest of the chatter, looking around the room again in a lazy manner. Too bad Fū was already a Chunin. It would have been nice to get her to come to the exams and meet up with her in an unsuspecting manner. Oh well. There was always another four months from now, and the day that he would inevitably break away from Konoha.

He was broken out of his thought process by his chakra sense, which alerted him to the presence of several chunins and a few special jonins, judging by their vests. Looking to the front of the procession, he saw a man with a large nose and several scars across his face, wearing a bandana around his head. He had been warned about this man, Ibiki Morino, and his skills; while he was an excellent interrogator, he was even more skilled at observation. As Ibiki barked out orders, Naruto knew that he couldn't slip up here.

---

The regular shinobi academy taught its ninjas-in-training many things, such as taijutsu, basic ninjutsu, and how to exercise and stretch to make your body effective. However, it failed in many ways, particularly in exploiting every little quirk that your body had to offer the mind.

For an excellent example, one only needed to observe the eyeball and the muscles that surrounded the socket. An inexperienced shinobi who wanted to look to something in the side of his vision would flicker his eyes over left or right. However, there were too many theoretical situations where allowing your eyes to move around in their sockets could be detrimental. In this case, with over two dozen chunin and several members of Konoha's Torture and Interrogation branch present and observing for any possible cheating methods, it was one of those many theoretical situations. A person who could keep their eyes pointed straight forward, while still being able to read words on the sheet to his left or right or below him by looking out of the side of his eye, without slipping up, would be a natural to pass the test. Most people were using chakra techniques, expending gross amounts of detectable energy that would have seen them kicked out immediately if this was for a jonin or ANBU examination. Being able to look out of the side of one's eye was a useful technique, and was nearly indetectable; only a slight movement and growth of the pupil indicated that a person was doing this, as their sclera was still facing the direction they were watching.

In Naruto's case, however, he was using it to observe the girl who sat right next to him: Hyuga Hinata. Originally she and her team had not been in his plans for the upcoming exams, being too high-profile of a target. However, he had not expected her to be sitting right next to him, and this was a golden opportunity. In this first exam he had a couple of allies he could use, and he could exploit Hinata's own nervousness and her obsessive crush on him to his advantage. It was while he was giving off nervous glances at his paper, all the while chewing his pencil, that he caught the telltale movement of the Hyuuga heiress' head, looking towards him and his paper both. This was far too perfect.

Continuing with his pretense of being nervous, he looked around the room at the different proctors. Finally, he allowed his gaze to sweep past the pair of Izumo and Kotetsu, both there to help proctor the exam. They understood perfectly, and all he got was a pair of quick eyeblinks in return. No nod was imperceptible to an elite like Ibiki, but a few seconds of rapid eyeblinking in response to an examinee looking at the proctors was nothing to be suspicious of.

A few minutes later, a kunai flew right past Naruto's face, forcing him to jump up in his seat as a pretense of surprise, while it landed right beside him, pinning Hinata's paper to the desk. The Byakugan wielder let out a short 'Eep' before facing the proctor who had failed her. Ah, good old Izumo. Hiashi would undoubtedly learn who had failed his daughter and give him hell for doing so, but the pay-off was so much more satisfying. Him and Kotetsu could be clowns at times, such as down on the second floor earlier, but they always would get serious and perform the job to satisfaction when they were needed.

"Number 123, fail!" Izumo barked out in a no-nonsense voice. "Take your team and get out of here." With wry amusement Naruto noted that a couple of the other proctors looked at their fellow chunin with surprise. It would seem that certain Konoha teams were automatically earmarked to go onto the next round regardless of what they did during the first exam (because in all honesty, that Team Eight hadn't already been thrown out for Akamaru constantly barking on top of Kiba's head was ridiculous), and Izumo had violated the list.

Naruto wasn't a total machine, though. He did take pity on Hinata as a forlorn look crossed her face, before utter defeat took over her body posture, her shoulders slumped and head down as she got up, the sounds of two other chairs scraping along the floor indicating her teammates leaving as well. From what he knew, Hyuuga Hiashi was a ruthless bastard, and that his daughter was the one who failed her team in the _first exam_ was a fact that would not escape his attention. Still...

_Sorry, Hinata_, Naruto offered to her in his thoughts, _But a large amount of the branch family likes you. The Hyuuga divided is better than the Hyuuga united. _As if gaining a sudden bout of inspiration, a look of understanding crossed his face. Snapping his fingers, he quickly picked up his pencil and started to write down some barely adequate answers for three of the questions. He knew his teammates would have been watching him for a few minutes after Hinata was thrown out, so it would be best to show them that he had seemingly been able to answer a few questions in a stroke of thought. That way they would not worry when it came to the final question if he chose to stay.

---

Unbeknownst to Naruto, his female teammate at least somewhat suspected what he had done. _Did he just do what I think he did?_ Sakura thought to herself. It was certainly possible; since they had graduated from the Academy, Naruto had shown himself to have minor skills in deception, and in the past eight months some of his actions seemed to show a ruthlessness she had never known he possessed. It did not seem out of his scope to know about Hinata's crush on him, and use that to lure her into a trap of looking right at his paper, getting docked marks for what seemed to be an obvious display of cheating. With Hinata gone, what looked to be one of the most dangerous teams in the competition was out for good.

The pink-haired girl let out a short shudder at that. _Naruto must have been at least somewhat acting in the Academy_, she thought to herself, chewing on her lip as she went over several incidents in her head. _Truthfully, I don't think anyone could have ever been that energetic and optimistic all the time. He must have felt that if we knew how merciless he could be when it was necessary, we would shun him, and we ended up shunning him anyways when he started acting like a clown. Oh Naruto._ Quite fortunate for Naruto, Sakura didn't go any further in her deductive reasoning. After all, Naruto was still Naruto – it wasn't like he was more ruthless than he was cheerful, right?

---

The tenth question went as planned for Naruto, as he turned his head back to face both of his teammates. He nodded to signal to them that he planned to stay, and so they fell into line with his own will. Following the first exam, which only fifty-four people passed, Ibiki Morino gave the chunin hopefuls an explanation of the purpose of the test. It was nothing that Naruto was not already used to, having dedicated his life's work so far to Yahiko-sama's goals.

They were currently out in front of the gates that blocked off access to Training Ground 44, more commonly known as the Forest of Death. Taking a glance at the purple-haired proctor for the survival test, who he had identified as being one Mitarashi Anko, the former protégé of Orochimaru before the Snake Sannin defected from Konoha, he suppressed a shiver. That girl scared her. She was worse than Fū was when provoked, having thrown a kunai at a Mist genin who had made a snarky comment in response to her warnings about the Forest of Death, before licking the blood off of his cheek.

Afterwards, she started handing out some waiver forms, again trying to scare the genin participants. Naruto looked off to his female teammate, and saw Sakura shivering at Anko's presence. Fearing what she might do in current state, Naruto squeezed her shoulder. When she turned to him, he gave her a reassuring look, which she let out a small smile to. It was good that she so easily responded to that; if she had a realistic idea of what would be going on in the Forest soon, she would probably have dropped away in a dead faint, which would disqualify them before they could set foot into the Forest of Death.

Half an hour later, they were finally in the Forest of Death, with an Earth Scroll in their possession, held by Sasuke, while both Sakura and Naruto each held a rock Henged to look like a Heaven Scroll. Sasuke stopped the other two for a team huddle, and asked, "What should we do? Should we try to make it to the tower right away, or hang back and gauge the strength of the other teams?"

Sakura was quick to answer. "They might have something else for us to do at the tower, but I can't imagine they would administer it to each of us individually. More than likely they'll wait until the end of five days to do it, so if we get there quicker, we have more time to rest up than several others will."

The trio traded remarks and comments; in particular was the worrying fact that the Iwa ninja were likely out to target Sasuke. After a while, Sasuke finally finished with a 'Hnn'. "So it's decided then, we'll try to find another team to get their scroll, and make it to the center of the forest as soon as possible. I'm not good at recon, though, so did Yamato teach either of you anything to help us around the forest?"

Naruto snapped his fingers, drawing the attention of the other two. Interjecting in the conversation, he quickly explained, "Yamato-sensei explained to me the original purpose of the Kage Bunshin. Rather than using it to spam bodies against an opponent like I once used it for, shinobi used it for scouting purposes. What a Kage Bunshin learns is sent back to its creator once it is dispersed, allowing me to scout several areas at once. For fighting purposes, I can send a clone to learn a person's strengths and weaknesses without fighting them in the flesh."

Sasuke was quite impressed at finding that out. Knowing just how many clones the blonde could summon, he responded, "What are you waiting for then, dobe? Make some and send them out."

Naruto tossed a foxy smirk to his Uchiha teammate. "As you will." Putting his fingers together in a cross shape, he quietly whispered, "**Kage Bunshin no Jutsu**", before coughing on the amount of smoke that appeared. Once the smoke had dispersed, there were well over a hundred dark-clad bodies. To Sasuke and Sakura's surprise, very few of them were actual visual replicas of Naruto; most of them had darker hair and eye colors, along with different facial features. Neither of the two were aware that Naruto had gone so far as being able to summon several clones with their features changed. However, for reconnaissance duties, it made sense to do such a thing, so the targets that would be scouted out would not recognize Naruto's clones.

The whiskered blonde looked at his clones, before barking out orders, "All of you, pair up in groups of two. Split off into two pairs per group. The first pair should mark another team's location, while the second pair should try to observe what each genin does and his or her strengths and weaknesses." The clones quickly took off in response to his commands; not that the verbal orders were needed, as they were summoned knowing exactly what he wanted. He had just said his piece for Sakura and Sasuke's sake.

Of course, twelve of the clones knew that they had different orders to fulfill. Four of them in particular knew they had to bury what emotions they possessed as clones for their mission.

---

Shikamaru never more than now cursed the fact that he was lazy and had let his physical stature go away. A fit adolescent had on average a lower heart rate and better blood circulation than an inactive one. He unfortunately fell into the latter category, and now his hearing was almost completely gone, blocked out by the wild pounding of blood in his head.

It was one of the few times his game plan had failed him. He had keenly observed all of the teams that remained after the first exam at the academy. Oto, Iwa, Suna, Kiri...he had analyzed their behaviours and mannerisms. He thought he had figured all of them out. Most of them were bloodthirsty, but were mainly interested in the pursuits of strong enemies. Team 7, with Sasuke in it, and the one Suna team, with the children of Kuroisuna no Akira, were the prize targets, weren't they? The three Iwa teams might have banded up together to eliminate as many Konoha-nin as they could, but they had been placed on opposite sides of the forest. It would have taken them at least twelve hours to meet up and put their plans into motions if that was the case.

He hadn't accounted for meeting an opponent that was apparently as vicious and ruthless as this one was. Whoever it was, he or she was merciless. Shikamaru only now realized that he had overestimated his analystical skills, and underestimated just how far a ninja could discard his emotions to satisfy the mission. Nobody with any sort of conscience...nobody...nobody could have killed in cold blood with no apparent justification.

Ino had been the first of the three to fall. They had been stumbling around the forest, trying to find a cave to hideout or the hollow base of a dead tree, and she had complained of a sting in her chest. Minutes later, she slumped over, suddenly dead. In shock, Shikamaru didn't think to get himself and Choji out of there with her body. Instead, he had stood there, trying to figure out the cause of death. It took a bit, but he finally found the reason: A senbon straight through the heart.

It had taken him minutes to deduce that from the small bloodstain on the front and back of her battle dress, and the very small puncture in the fabric on both sides. To his horror, he had taken too long to analyze the wound, because then _Choji_ had started complaining of an itch around his left breastbone. It was one of the few times that Shikamaru had panicked in his life, and quite possibly would be the last time. He had grabbed Choji by the arm and high-tailed it out of the clearing they were in, trying to get underneath some tree-cover.

Running only killed his portly friend quicker, forcing the heart to pump blood quicker. This also had the effect of giving Choji a dose of the pain before he succumbed to the same method of assassination that Ino had. Shikamaru was unsure whether he would survive long enough to ever sleep again, but if he did, he knew that the Akimichi's twisted face and glassy eyes would haunt his dreams.

Now...now his only hopes for survival lied in utilizing one of the Nara Clan's most secret techniques. The Nara were well known for being able to manipulate their shadows and the shadows of others, but above all they were _ninja_, and ninja were to not be seen. The pinnacle of their skills was being able to hide in the shadows, wrapping a cloak of darkness around their bodies. It was this that he was using to stand up against the base of a great tree, using to mask his presence and make himself invisible in the shadow of the great tree.

If Shikamaru had had a little more training in thinking under pressure before being put in the exams, he would have been able to push above his panic and think properly. As it was, he would have realized that all he did was block off visible light rays from revealing his position. Any enemy who was capable of seeing chakra emissions, or in other parts of the light spectrum, could still see him. Any enemy could still hear his heavy breathing, or the pounding of his heart. Any enemy could smell the sweat dripping down his forehead. A rare few would even be able to taste the palpable taste of fear on the air. As it was, he had broken under pressure. The only condolence he would have was that, distracted as he was, he would not feel the same sting and itch that his teammates had, and death would come to him before he saw its advent. All he would see that was out of the ordinary was a small puff of smoke coming from a tree branch a few dozen meters away.

He would never feel as another clone came around, using a kunai and several obscure jutsu to desecrate his corpse, making it look as if he had been attacked by an animal. He would never again be able to watch the quiet drifting of fluffy white clouds, as Choji noisily ate fried potato chips beside him all while avoiding Ino's nagging for them to get to work. Never again.

---

**Eh, I originally had a much lengthier author's note down here but decided to trim it down. Still, some explanations.**

**Killing off Team 10 has been something I've been planning since the start of the story. The various Akatsuki characters have been nattering on about sabotage and so forth for so long that it was finally nice for me to show where I get off by having the summary state the story is Dark!Naruto other than him just being angst a lot. You'll see in Chapter 3 that Naruto looked like he was building camaraderie with Team 10. Of course it would probably hurt Naruto to have to do this, but nobody will ever suspect him of killing Team 10 since he was their friend. **

**For in-verse motivation, this wasn't random either. Naruto did it for several reasons; first of all, Shikamaru is the heir to a clan of geniuses, Ino is the heiress to a clan of mind-probers, and Choji is the heir to the Akimichi clan, who I guess makes military rations and soldier pills? In any case, the loss of two clan heirs and an heiress will devastate the respective clans, thus dropping their morale, and each clan will have to train a specific person to take over as clan head (even with my "a clan has more than one family line" world the heirs and heiresses would still be taught in all the clan techniques as well as politics and finance, while others might only learn part of the clan's skills). Furthermore, losing his entire team will demoralize Asuma, which by proxy will devastate his father, Hiruzen Sarutobi, the Sandaime, not to mention the politics of it – sending three rookie genin into a test where killing is allowed. He would have done Team 8, but Hinata is far too high-profile, and Naruto would be wary of trying to take out a team that is geared to reconnaissance, particularly with Shino, who has kikai bugs that might be able to pass on a message after death.**

**Lastly, Naruto can do it NOW because there are genin teams from Iwa, Konoha's sworn enemy, and Konoha will automatically assume the Iwa team did the act, and never actually try to see if that is true or not, so great their hate will be. It also means that if I killed off Team 10 you now know that I actually have the balls to kill off major canon characters, and are probably quickly thinking over who else I might kill off, and when. **

**Also, to clarify on how Naruto killed Team 10; he threw a senbon through their hearts. They barely felt the bleeding and died before they even realized what was happening, as their heart was losing its life blood. This is somewhat based on a real assassination, that of Elisabeth of Bavaria, who was stabbed in the heart with a nail file, never realizing that she was dying before she died (hers was different, though; she had a tight corset on, so when she loosened it all the blood that had gathered in her heart burst out, killing her nearly instantly). When Konoha finds their bodies, they will first assume it was animals. If they figure out the real cause of death (if of course real animals haven't eaten a large part of their bodies by then) then they will assume Iwa did it.**

**I'm not quite sure if I did the beginning part right with the first exam. Basically, with your vision, you can see out of the side of your eye without actually moving your eyeball around. The Hyuuga can use the Byakugan to achieve a similar effect, except they can see all around and have more focus in the 'side' of their eyes. Naruto was pretending to have trouble with the exam so that Hinata would forget the situation in her worry over him and actually physically **_**turn**_** her head to look at him and, more importantly, his exam paper. Looking at someone else's exam paper is obvious cheating, so she looks at his paper either on five separate occasions or long enough to count for five marks docked off to get thrown out of the test. As for why Naruto did it, he hints at it in his own POV during the exam; she will be shamed for having failed the first exam, and if the main family begins to look down on her even more while the branch family likes her it causes internal divisions. Similar results go for Kiba and Shino, but to lesser extents since it will be well-known that it was not them that was responsible for failing the first exam, and as I have written it neither of them are clan heirs, so less pressure for them to excel.**

**Kabuto didn't do his ninja-cards thing or bait the Sound ninjas because he's actually trying to stay fairly inconspicuous here.**

**Starting next chapter I'll probably start writing up short mini-profiles for the various spies working under the Akatsuki, particularly all the members I mention in Konoha. **


	14. The Forest of Death, Part I

**Chapter Fourteen – 'Forest of Death, Part I'**

**---**

**I was a bit worried about the possible responses to the plot twist last chapter, as I`ve seen similar things done in other stories, with people not responding favourably. Either I pulled it off well enough that either only a small minority dislike it, or none of those who disliked cared to vocalize their thoughts. Hopefully the former.**

**Personally, I like the first half of this chapter. It wrote itself really well. Then the second half of the chapter became stilted when I tried to write and in my opinion went to crap.**

**UPDATED EXTRA SCENE: I took the advice of a few reviews to heart and added an extra scene onto the end with Anko, ANBU and Naruto interaction, so the ending isn't quite nearly as choppy. **

---

Although Maito Gai might be accused of favouritism with his genin team by giving Rock Lee far more attention than his other two protégés, Higurashi Tenten and Hyuuga Neji would deny any such charge. Their sensei had always invited them to participate in the exercises he and Lee went through. They always declined; although some might think it was because they could not keep up with the pair of spandex-wearers, that was not quite the truth. Instead, they tried to preserve their dignity, and kept their bodies in fit condition outside of their team practices.

Even beside that, some might point out how Gai consistently trained Rock Lee more than he did his other two genin students, even outside of the regular exercises. Tenten and Neji again would say that was unfair. Gai had shown Tenten how to adjust from kunai to heavier weapons in less than a second, as well as increasing both her accuracy and throwing speed beyond what it already was, not to mention teaching her a close-combat style that complemented her love of weapons, with brass knuckles and clawed gauntlets both. In Neji's case, sparring with Gai was brutally efficient; the older man would tear open the flaws and holes that were present in his Juken, forcing him to constantly improve, refine and to innovate with the Juken. It was something that helped him bear the episodes Gai and Lee constantly went through, which he privately (but would never admit under threat of death) found amusing.

Finally, one might be inclined to think Gai did little to promote the teamwork between his genin, as shown during Neji's public displays of spouting off about fate. Truthfully, Gai only occasionally talked to the Hyuga branch house heir about such fits. Contrary to what one might think, however, Gai did not discourage Neji's philosophy, and instead merely discouraged him from letting his preaching about fate getting the best of him; a man who thinks it is inevitable that he will be defeated will obviously end up in defeat. Instead, he told Neji that even if all roads were preordained, a person could still choose how they walked down that path. He knew Neji secretly respected Rock Lee for his work ethic and strived to stay ahead of the chakra-impaired taijutsu user. Tenten was inevitably pulled in by the two boys hard work, and put forth her own considerable amount of effort in training. Through harsh drills and lots of sweat and blood poured together as a team, Gai knew they would be bonded together better than any teamwork exercise he could come up with.

---

Supposedly, Team Gai was at an impasse, as they seemingly turned out to be an even match for the team of Iwa genin that had confronted them. Neji was being pressured from long range by a Doton user, while Tenten's weapons were bouncing off the second genin, a possessor of the Iron Skin technique that was taught to a rare few in Iwa, which allowed the user to harden his or her skin to become nearly as tough as a diamond. Finally, Lee was matched up against an opposing taijutsu user, one who had strengthened his muscles, a complement to Lee's speed.

Supposedly, in any case. When Gai had learned from the Sandaime Iwa's intentions to enter the exam, he knew exactly what was likely to happen. He was no fool. He was quite well aware that Iwa was most likely using the exams as a pretense to try wiping out a generation of Konoha's shinobi and kunoichi. However, he had also promised his pupils that he would enter them when the Chunin Exams came to Konoha.

Because of Iwa's anticipated presence, he decided to work his team harder than before. Not only did he forcibly bring Neji and Tenten into some of his work-out sessions, he also went about diversifying their skill set, again using the same surprising cold-stone logic that his students would only see a glimpse of on the occasion.

The Iwa teams that had come to Konoha had researched their likely opponents, and picked out teams to target based on their skill-sets and their potential. Based on information that spies in Konoha had picked up, they knew that Maito Gai was an Elite Jonin, and his students could end up being even stronger than him if they were allowed to progress. With copied profiles, they quickly came up with a strategy for attacking and killing Team Gai. However, Iwa's Team Six had not expected to run into such resistance with Team Gai.

---

Kordula Gansho risked a temporary reprieve from his fight with the white-eyes, taking the split second to wipe the sweat off his forehead. Looking over at his opponent, he continued gaping. A Hyuga who could fight at long-range? This was insane!

And yet it was the case. Gansho had tried summoning several rocks into the air and throwing it at his long-haired foe, only to have it blasted away by a strange orb of rotating chakra. Additionally, he had to constantly dodge _chakra strings_ of all things. The Hyuuga had apparently taken the common chakra string, and thickened them until they could be snapped back and forth like a whip, which both stung Gansho and burned his skin where it hit, causing that spot on his body to numb. Although he was unable to hit his target with long-range attacks, and was taking damage from the chakra whips, he still stayed away from his target; he did not wish to come in close contact with the infamous Hyuga Juken, which the whips paled in comparison to. He was not his teammate, he did not know the Iron Skin technique.

Instead, he used his insane control over the element of earth. Letting his chakra seep into the ground underneath his feet, he directed it through the groundwater straight to underneath where his opponent was. In a gruelling test of concentration, he continued attacking the Hyuga branch heir with long-range attacks, all the while using his underground chakra to harden the ground underneath his opponent's feet, before cutting out a sharp section. Sharpening the formed rock for a pointy end, he thrust his arms out and willed it to pop out of the ground, trying to skewer the Hyuga from his crotch up.

Unfortunately, Gansho did not take into account that Neji was a _Hyuga_, a clan who possessed the Byakugan eyes, which was able to see raw chakra, both internal _and_ external. Chakra did not move instantly; Gansho had to allow his chakra to move underground to where Neji was. It was a legitimate strategy, and it could have worked if Neji kept his focus entirely on Gansho. After all, a 360 degree sight only allowed a Hyuga to see around his or herself, and not above or below. However, Neji was not a run-of-the-mill Hyuga, and he constantly made light scans of both the ground and the sky so he would not be thwarted from above or below.

Hence, Neji saw the rock spire that was being sharpened underneath his feet. When Gansho made to bring it skywards to skewer him, the Hyuga prodigy had been quick to leap out of the way, moving in for the kill. Gansho had put nearly all of his remaining chakra into the spire of rock, such that in his exhausted state he was unable to defend against a chakra whip that hit him in the eye. Screaming in pain, he instinctively brought both hands up to cover his eye, which left him undefended to several quick jabs to his chest. His organs exploded inside his ribcage, making the inside of his body almost mushy. All that was left of Gansho collapsed, hitting the dirt ground with a large smack sound.

---

Retightening his white robes that had loosened up during the battle, Neji quickly jumped back and used his Byakugan at medium range to examine the Iwa nin's corpse. He would not put it past his opponent to have done something like wear a few explosive tags set to go off should he die. To his satisfaction, not only was there a lack of traps on the cooling body, but he also spotted a scroll in the back pockets of the dead genin's pants.

Taking out the scroll, he examined it, and let a small smirk cross his face. It was a Heaven Scroll, which would complete their set, having already gotten the Earth Scroll before entering the forest.

Getting up from his hunched position, he turned around to face his two approaching teammates, who he had already noticed via his Byakugan; he also knew them to be his teammates and not an enemy in disguise, as no genjutsu could fool him. As they got within hearing range, he quickly asked, "How did you kill your opponents?"

Tenten was the first to respond, before Lee could go into his hyperactive mode. "Poison. My opponent had some sort of tough skin, but he got too cocky with it as my kunai would bounce off. I used a couple of shuriken laced with venom and kept out of the way of his attacks until he succumbed."

Lee pumped his fist into the air, his eyebrows practically growing even more. "Yosh! My opponent was most youthful, and we traded hits blow-for-blow!" Seeing his teammates begin to glare at him, he quickly cut his diatribe, and ended his lines. "I lured him into a classic rope trap that he didn`t see, and snapped his neck while he was falling." Even now, Neji and Tenten were both surprised at just how brutally efficient Lee could be, and how brusque he was when Gai wasn`t there to stoke his 'Flames of Youth'. Under normal circumstances, Lee would have been too honourable to do such a thing as use a trap to kill his opponent, instead preferring to fight him head on. However, that Iwa would cowardly send in ninja who had gone through advanced training to sneak attack and kill Konoha genin was enough to get Lee to use alternate tactics.

"Well," Neji said, holding up the scroll that he had just acquired, along with the other scroll that he had held since the beginning of the exam, "The genin I fought fell prey to Juken, though I managed to wear him down with the chakra whips." Both Tenten and Lee winced, having been forced to be guinea pigs for Neji's experimentation with the extensions of chakra strings. "He also had the Heaven Scroll, which means we can head off to the tower now. I have no idea if only one of the Iwa teams were out to pursue us, but we should make it to safety quickly if another one tries to pursue us."

The decision was effectively sealed as Lee once more pumped his fist, and quietly shouted "Yosh! Let`s go to the tower!"

---

Team Gai needn't have worried about fighting off another Iwa team, however. One of the other two teams had encountered another Konoha genin team, this one consisting of Akado Yoroi, Misumi Tsurugi, and Yakushi Kabuto. The fight didn't last very long, as Kabuto's skills, on the level of one of Konoha's Elite Jonins, more than dwarfed the capabilities of the three Iwa genin together. It was over in seconds.

Akado was the first to voice his concerns. "Shouldn't they have been warned not to attack us?"

Kabuto let out a light hum, as he tapped his lips with his fingers as a nervous habit. "Orochimaru-sama probably did not wish to expose us," He finally said. "If the Iwa genin were informed beforehand of our status as spies for our lord, it is quite possible that they could have somehow leaked that information unwittingly to an enemy, which would not do."

"Damnit!" Misumi said, punching his palm. "We've only just started the exam, so they likely didn't get to take anyone else out. Should we do their job for them now?"

Misumi never received an answer; it was difficult to, after all, when a kunai suddenly introduces itself in your throat, spinning around multiple times from the sheer force of the throw, the momentum causing his body to fall backwards as opposed to forward. Akado was also quickly slain by the same method, quickly dropping to the ground with a light thud.

Kabuto tsk'ed at the situation he had just wrought by his own hands. He had considered that this was a sort of test by Orochimaru at first, but had quickly discarded the idea. As paranoid as the snake was, he wouldn't do something like sending a trio of Iwa genin at Kabuto's group and seeing what he did. Secondly, the snake was on the other side of the forest; even on the off-chance he was testing Kabuto, unless he had somehow learned how to teleport, he would not be able to reach Kabuto in any short period of time. Kabuto could later claim that he had broken up from the main group, and went to the tower only to find his teammates missing.

Still, there was the issue of getting rid of the bodies; neither Konoha nor Orochimaru could be allowed to know that it was his team that had 'fought' against an Iwa team. It would cause suspicion from both sides, though for varying reasons. Biting down on his thumb until it drew blood, he quickly went through a short series of symbols, before slamming his fists into the ground, quietly murmuring "Kuchiyose no Jutsu."

He made a mental note to thank Fū the Nanabi jinchuuriki, later on as his summons appeared. As aligned with nature as she was due to her bijuu, he truly was the one most suited for wielding the Kabutomushi contract. With his healing ability, he often likened himself to a cockroach, a close member of the beetles that was included as part of the contract; about the only thing that could kill him was decapitation or total destruction of most of his organs at once, and he could easily survive most illnesses and disease, as well as being able to adapt to harsh environments.

---

"Kukukuku" The odd laugh was what alerted Team 7 to the presence of an intruder in their tight patrol. Immediately moving into a triangle formation with Sasuke at the front, the trio observed a tall kunoichi who was from Suna, as identified by the hitai-ite on her forehead. However, the genin's appearance was freaking them out; her black hair and white pale skin seemed out of place for somebody whom would have surely been browned all over with bleached hair from the sunny Sunagakure, and was contrasted to the large amount of dried blood that was all over her clothing and parts of her skin.

"I had to kill a lot of ANBU to finally meet you, Sasuke-kun," The genin continued on. "I don't have long before they come to visit us again, of course, so don't disappoint me, kukuku..."

"What in Kami's name are you talking about, you freak?!" Sasuke shouted out. Looking at his foe, he couldn't help but be disgusted by the filth that was all over her clothes. Not only was their blood, there also seemed to be something that looked like entrails, and possibly brain matter. If not for the fact that he had seen and smelled the body of his skewered father before, he would have quite possibly thrown up at the sight before him.

"Kukuku, wouldn't you like to know, Sasuke-kun?" By this point, the three Leaf genin were beginning to be severely freaked out by the odd genin's behaviour (though Naruto was freaking out because he knew who she was, and knew he was not at her skill level). The mysterious Suna genin rose her hand and quickly went through a series of hand-seals, mouthing some words but not actually saying anything. The wind picked up in the surrounding glade and began to snap, before Naruto was thrown back several meters.

The mysterious genin frowned in Naruto's direction. "Interesting, you should have been blown clear away by that. No matter, take care of him, my dear pet!"

The rookies saw exactly what the Suna female was talking about when a giant snake slithered from out of the trees, touching down on the ground, before making its way over to where Naruto had been pushed back to, intent on eating the blonde whole.

Sasuke moved to defend Naruto, only to be stopped cold in his tracks. The air began to cool down considerably, as he forced himself to repress a shiver against the never-ending fear that threatened to shut down his greater mental functions and turn him into an animal. The person who stood before him was a monster who could and would kill him at a pindrop. Already, he could fee his cognitive abilities begin to decline. It was as if a shadow had been cast over his entire life he didn't want to die didn't want to die didn'

Snapping open his eyes, Sasuke activated his two-tomoe Sharingan, sending a piercing glare at the kunoichi opposite him. His body still struggled to move, but while his finer motor skills were crippled, he was still able to open his mouth and push his tongue in between his teeth. Letting his jaw move back up, a sharp jolt of pain brought him back to reality as his mouth filled with the metallic taste of blood. "Who are you?!" He demanded as he turned to look at the kunoichi. Spotting several kunai coming for him, he jumped out of the way, then grabbed his pink-haired teammate, who was standing shock still from the killing intent that permeated the air, and started moving her out of the flight path of some more weapons.

"Kukukuku, so you managed to overcome my **Kanashibari**, did you now, Sasuke-kun?" Again with that weird laugh. "My name is Orochimaru of the Densetsu no Sannin." Vaguely, Sasuke heard Sakura gasp in the background where he had put her off, only for a large smack sound to occur a second later. The cause was easy to see why; the self-proclaimed Orochimaru had just thrown what appeared to be a needle of sorts at Sakura, perhaps a dart. A tranquilizer? No matter, the Sannin was speaking again. "Tell me, Sasuke-kun, do you still desire to kill Itachi? I know him quite well."

The snake sannin's plan worked, as despite all the mental and emotional conditioning Sasuke had gone through, he still rose to the bait. "What do you know about Itachi?!"

Orochimaru merely chuckled again. "Kukukuku, I know Itachi is still far far stronger than you are." Narrowing her (his?) eyes, she (he?) went to work with his silver tongue. "Tell me, Sasuke-kun, how do you truly plan to kill your brother? Itachi was a genin at the age of six. By this time, he was already in ANBU, and in only a few months you will be at the age he was when he killed two thirds of your clan, including your father, and went nuke-nin." Seeing Sasuke freeze up at her (his?) words, the snake summoner pressed on. "Konoha wants you to be weak, and docile. They want you to advance slowly, so you will constantly have to get training from your 'betters' here in Konoha. If you die against your brother, Konoha can integrate the Uchiha clan further into the village, making it impossible for them to conduct their affairs independently."

Sasuke was, of course, conflicted. Why would Konoha do such a thing? The Uchiha had been the most powerful clan before Itachi had massacred most of it, and even now they were still the third most powerful clan, behind the Hyuuga and the Inuzuka. Within a couple of generations the Uchiha would be great again, even stronger than before. What Orochimaru had said made sense. He knew he was better than basically all of the genin, and even many chunin. Why had he not been allowed to graduate from the academy until eight months ago, when Itachi only needed to be six?

A voice of rational thought popped up in his head, telling him that Itachi had graduated shortly after the Kyuubi attack, and the village needed to replenish its numbers. But wasn't the loss of the Uchiha clan and border skirmishes with Iwa in the same year also just cause? Did Konoha's military leaders truly want to keep the Uchiha down? Slowly, Sasuke couldn't help but fall for the lure of what Orochimaru had so far implied he was offering. "So you will give me the power to kill Itachi? But how do you plan to do that? You're a traitor to Konoha!" There was that, too. Could he keep the Uchiha pride and honor while learning from a betrayer of the village the Uchiha had sworn loyalty to? But then there was Itachi. How could the Uchiha clan have any honor so long as one such as him still lived? "On the other hand...what can you offer me?"

"It's simple, Sasuke-kun, kukuku," Orochimaru responded, a leer present on her face. "But enough of that, I'm quite sure the ANBU must realize I'm here by now, I killed enough of both of those old fogeys' men personally to afford the time to speak with you. I'll give you a mere taste of the power I can offer. An agent of mine will contact you at a later time. Do survive please, Sasuke-kun." Before Sasuke had time to respond, Orochimaru's head, his neck extending like it was made out of rubber, and his teeth sunk into the Uchiha heir's neck.

The teen dropped to the ground as his left hand clenched over where he had just been bitten, with dark visible chakra suddenly oozing from the bite, pulsing in and out at a fixed interval. Orochimaru chuckled, turning his attention to the lone chakra presence that was coming from where he had sent his snake off. Neither of the two noticed during their conversation several flies that were nearby, each having dispersed itself at separate intervals, leaving behind only a minor fragrance of smoke.

---

Naruto wasted no time in taking out the snake as it chased him away from where the snake Sannin appeared. A quick Futon: Kaze no Yaiba managed to make a considerable cut across the snake's head, forcing it to desummon itself back to the summons realm lest it be slain by continuing the battle.

Itachi may have given him permission to kill Sasuke if the latter ever looked like he might betray Konoha for reasons that lacked nobleness, but that didn't mean that Naruto could stand by and allow Sasuke to be pushed into a situation like that. As the memories of several Kage Bunshins that he had left behind came in, however, it seemed that Sasuke was quite willing to betray Konoha for the lust of power. Not that Naruto really minded that so much, but the Uchiha was willing to go to _the snake_ for power. The Yondaime's legacy realised his own motives were slightly hypocritical in that regard, but at least his own leaders didn't experiment on several dozen young orphans, or desecrate the dead by creating a jutsu that could summon them for their own perverse pleasures.

Entering the clearing where Orochimaru and Sasuke had had their conversation, he came face-to-face with the snake Sannin. Taking a quick look at Sasuke, Naruto started to do his act. "You! What did you to do Sasuke?!"

"Kukukukuku," Naruto was getting quite sick of that chuckle, "I gave the Uchiha a 'gift' if you will. He'll want to use it if he wants to surpass his brother. Boy," the Sannin said, taking out a scroll from under his feminine clothing, "Take this scroll." Naruto cautiously jumped back, unsure of whether it was an official exam scroll or a trap of sorts. "Kukuku, I see you're intelligent enough not to catch it directly, many others have fallen for that sort of trap. I know you already have an Earth Scroll, you'll need this Heaven Scroll to make it to the tower." Looking over at Sasuke, he added "Of course, that's only if dead Sasuke-kun refuses to accept a 'hand-out' and wants to legitimately get a scroll from another team. That only makes it more interesting, kukukuku. Do make sure Sasuke-kun survives that mark though, boy. It would be such a shame if he were to die from it. Tell him that if he wants his power, Orochimaru of the Sannin will be waiting for him." With a snap of the wind, he was gone, off into the treetops.

Naruto let out a sigh of breath he didn't know he was holding, it seemed Orochimaru hadn't realised he was the (supposed) Kyuubi jinchuuriki (of course, Naruto assumed incorrectly about Orochimaru's information - the snake sannin knew, but he simply didn't care. He knew if he interfered too much with the Kyuubi jinchuuriki, Hakubo would come after him, something he didn't desire). However, Naruto was quickly on guard again, as only a few seconds after Orochimaru had left the clearing, five more entered; four ANBU clad in black clothing, headed up by the purple haired exam proctor from earlier. Taking notice of the blonde genin still standing up, Anko's eyes drifted over to the unconscious Uchiha. She froze once she saw the purple chakra that was pulsing in and out from where his neck was. Breaking rank, she jumped over to where Sasuke was while the four ANBU kept their sights trained on Naruto. After letting out a quiet curse at seeing what was on his neck, she quickly stood up and turned to face Naruto. "You! What just happened here?"

---

"You! What just happened here?" Anko shouted out at the kid she had just identified as the Kyuubi container, Uzumaki Naruto.

Naruto was quick to put his hands up in the universal gesture of surrender, and started babbling, "W-we were attacked by this S-suna kunoichi, who said that she was Orochimaru of the S-sannin."

Anko froze in her position as her blood chilled. She had only been debriefed shortly after the second exam had started on the possibility of Orochimaru trying to enter the Forest of Death, which had been the reason why there were so many ANBU patrols around. In fact, Ibiki had already identified one of the Sand genin during the first exam as being slightly 'off'. With Baki no Yaiba's permission, two squads of Konoha ANBU and several ROOT were sent into Training Ground 44 to apprehend the chunin potential. The hope was that if her former master had indeed stolen a kunoichi's face and was in the forest, that they could hopefully capture the depraved scientist. Getting focus again, she called out to the fox container, "What did she look like, what happened when you were attacked."

The lemon-haired genin seemed to shake off a bit of shock, slowly calming down his trembling body, before speaking again. "I wasn't around to fight her much," he admitted, "I was chased after by this giant snake which I think I killed by swarming it with Kage Bunshins." Motioning to Sakura and Sasuke, he continued, "After I got back, both of them were already knocked out. She had lots of blood and what seemed to be guts and brain over her clothes. She gave us a Heaven Scroll. She said something about a gift and Sasuke."

Disjointed as Naruto's descriptions were, Anko still was able to deduce some things from what he said. So it seemed like Orochimaru _had_ killed the good men and women that had been sent after him. She frowned at the mention of a gift. Taking care not to startle Naruto, who had undoubtedly just come face to face with death, she shouted across the clearing to him, "You mentioned Sasuke and a gift, right?" After getting a nod, she slowly drawled out to him, "I'm going to check out the Uchiha now. If it's what I think it is," Of course she knew what it was, she was just trying to deny it to herself that her hated sensei had managed to possibly ruin yet another life, "I'm going to have to interfere in this exam – all entirely unofficial, of course, or else other villages participating would be accusing us of foul play – and do some things. What scroll did you start off with?" She finished, as she walked over to the unconscious Uchiha heir.

"An Earth Scroll, proctor-san," Naruto answered. His face scrunched up suddenly, and he queried Anko over what seemed to be a worry of his. "Will you be confiscating the Heaven Scroll, proctor-san?"

Anko looked over to one of her ANBU. "Kawauso!" She barked, as the respective masked shinobi stood to attention. "Examine that scroll on the ground, please!" Receiving a short salute in response to her orders, she looked over Sasuke, cursing as soon as she saw the mark on his neck. "Technically, Orochimaru is a part of the competition, even if he did enter via illicit means." Examining the mark on the Uchiha's neck, she saw that it had not totally solidified yet. "Ookami!" A split second later, she felt the presence of her lone kunoichi escort next to her, as well as the squad's medic. "Please focus on healing Uchiha and restoring his chakra and stamina, he will need it for what's next." Standing up from her hunched position over the unconscious Sasuke, she turned to look at Naruto again. "If Kawauso doesn't find any traps of the sort on the scroll, then you can keep that one, otherwise I'll give you another one."

At seeing Naruto complacently nod in response to her commands, Anko let out a relieved sigh at having been able to defuse the situation quickly. While her lust for revenge urged her to go after Orochimaru, she had her responsibility as a Konoha kunoichi here, minimizing the success of whatever nefarious scheme her former master had for the Uchiha. Let the snake get mad if she was able to prevent the Uchiha from using the Curse Seal.

It was ten minutes later, as Kawauso had finished examining the Scroll of Heaven that Orochimaru had handed over and giving it an all-clear, and Ookami had finished doing what little she could for Sasuke, that Anko handed the bodies of the Kyuubi vessel's teammates over to the remaining two ANBU. Turning to Naruto, she began to elaborate on what the plan was. "My patrol squad and I will escort you to a couple of kilometres away from the Tower. There, we will stay until the Uchiha regains consciousness. That 'gift' Orochimaru mentioned is a highly dangerous seal that corrupts the user if it is used too much, as well as destroying the body, and I would prefer to be there to detail Uchiha on the risks he runs if he dares use it when he wakes up."

Anko was surprised, as Naruto just nodded dumbly, with a slightly confused look on his face at her description of the Curse Seal. _Then again_, she thought to herself, _anybody would be rendered mute after coming out of a virtual death-experience like that_. After a suitable period of time had passed in which she judged Naruto to have been able to mostly absorb the information she had just finished debriefing him on, she continued, "Again, you must remember, that this is all on the down-low. Chunin Exam rules state that there can be no outside interference, so on the way to where we are heading, you and I will work out a cover story to evade suspicions about our intervention. Got that, gaki?"

Naruto just nodded again, uttering a quick, "Hai, proctor-san."

Anko called out. "Alright squad, move into Cross Formation!" Quickly, the four ANBU that had accompanied Anko melted into the shadows, their skills at such a level that Naruto was barely able to detect them. Grabbing Naruto by the arm, Anko pulled him up onto the branch of a nearby tree. Letting go of him, she gave a light punch. "By the way, please stop with the 'proctor-san'. I prefer Mitarashi-san."

For once, a small smile broke out onto Naruto's face, which Anko had to admit to her female instincts was utterly adorable with the fox whiskers that adorned his face. "Hai, Mitarashi-san."

---

**If there's one thing I genuinely enjoyed about this chapter, it's (as TVTropes would say it) making Team Gai take a level in badass. In the prelims in canon, Rock Lee came _that_ close to defeating regular Gaara, while Tenten would probably have defeated most people (but got matched up against the worst possible opponent), and nobody really pays much attention to Neji's actual skill in that match-up as they do to his actions during the match. But still, they could use an expansion on their skill set. So Neji can use chakra whips that can hit an opponent at long range, stinging and burning them and damaging their tenketsus with raw chakra, and ideally can latch onto a limb or the neck. Tenten uses poisons and paralyzing agents, as well as a few other things that I may or may not have her use in the future, while Lee actually uses traps (though Lee seems to 'honourable' in canon to do such a thing, I DID give a justification here for his doing so).**

**There's one thing that I really would like to point out with the fight between Gansho and Neji. At one point I talk about Neji being able to dodge the rock spires because he can see the chakra Gansho is using it to manipulate it. One thing I don't quite like about the manga is how it treats chakra at times; chakra is an energy, which means it cannot instantaneously move around. When Gansho tries to skewer Neji by hardening and then sharpening a part of the ground underneath Neji's feet and then bringing it up, he has to actively manipulate chakra to go over to where Neji is via the underground, then go through the whole process of using it to harden. His chakra does not instantly teleport to the ground underneath Neji. Neji can see through the ground with his chakra and hence can retreat from the ground where the chakra is seeping through and doing something. The Rasenshuriken is basically pure chakra, with some of it being futon elemental, but when it is thrown during the Pein fight, it doesn't exactly move at light-speed. Compare that with a lot of genjutsus, which are almost instantaneously, especially Tsukiyomi.**

**A few of you might see where I am going with this; since genjutsus, including Tsukiyomi, would require the user to channel and manipulate chakra in the air, then direct it towards the target's body, you could ideally block the genjutsu by preventing the chakra from being able to go through the air. Food for thought for a legitimate counter against Tsukiyomi other than a jinchuuriki using his demon's yokai; block the Sharingan user's chakra from being able to get to your body in the first place.**

**Also, Byakugan and 360 degree sight. The Byakugan does NOT see in a perfect sphere. 360 means being able to see in a perfect circle around the Hyuga's head, but not underneath it. So Neji has to look up and down because the ground and the sky are still blind spots.**

**Hopefully if anybody was wondering which side Kabuto was playing for, this chapter would clear it up; he is most definitely on Akatsuki's side. Two Iwa teams down, but that doesn't mean the third one will suffer the same fate. Some might complain about Anko being OOC, but please remember that the character interpretation you may be familiar with (bloodthirsty on the outside, hurting and lonely on the inside) is pretty much completely fanon. I'm going for a more serious Anko with a slight playful side.**

**For the reviewers this time: I would like a little bit of feedback on what you think of my fight scenes, if you would, please. The only other fight scene besides the ones in this chapter are Kakashi vs. Hakko and a short Aoi vs. Hakko in Chapters 6 and 7, and if you want to, you could consider the last scene of the previous chapter as a one-sided fight.**


	15. The Forest of Death, Part II

**Chapter Fifteen – 'The Forest of Death, Part II'**

**Woops, heh-heh. I say "Don't expect another chapter for a few weeks." Technically I was correct, but I didn't expect that to become a few months :/**

To be a ninja meant to blend into the shadows. That was a phrase Sasuke had heard many times in his life. It was not meant to be taken literally, but instead looked at as a metaphor. Deception was a ninja's lifeblood, simple as that. There were so many little things that involved deception, however, and Sasuke ignored a large part of them: being able to go undercover as the opposite gender, for one, would not help him kill Itachi. There were other mannerisms that he did pick up, though. One was the way he woke up: his body stayed perfectly still, while his breathing patterns and heart beats continued to be uniform. This allowed him to survey his surroundings before he alerted a possible enemy to his being up.

At least, under normal circumstances he would do that. However, he had just been subjected to a dangerous juinjutsu that had forcibly modified his body, making him more susceptible to rage as well as the influence of a snake's whispers. In the process, he had been exhausted in simply trying to live while adjusting to the changes: as a result, his mental fatigue was such that he did not adhere to his normal process of surveying his surroundings first.

"Up, Uchiha," a voice came from above him. Grunting, Sasuke covered his eyes with his hand, the light piercing his eyelids to give him a minor headache. Pushing his upper body off the ground, he slowly let the sun filter through his fingers, before his hand gave way. Looking over to the voice that had called him, he saw a purple-haired lady sitting on top of a rock. Where had he seen her before? Oh yeah, she was the exam proctor for the second exam. What was she doing here?

"You might be wondering why I'm here, Uchiha!" The lady said in an annoyed tone. Damn. It was like she could read his mind. "As you may or may not recall, you were waylaid by Orochimaru in the forest earlier."

Sasuke snapped up abruptly at Anko's words. Now he remembered: that creepy Suna kunoichi had attacked his team, and then revealed herself to be Orochimaru, the Snake Sannin, before biting him.

"That girl-!" Sasuke growled, before turning to face Anko. "Where did she-he go?"

Having been cleaning her fingernails with a kunai, Anko put her weapon away before focusing on Sasuke. "Orochimaru ran away before we had a chance to intercept him." She let her own little growl out at that thought. "I know you might be tempted to chase after him, having your pride wounded like that. However, you will **not **under any circumstances try to chase after him, do you understand me Uchiha?"

The black-haired boy made to protest, before letting it die out in his throat. He was not so foolish to think that he could beat a Sannin, or even track one down. Besides, he still had to think over the offer the Snake Sannin had made to him. Yes, he would lay back and wait for Orochimaru's spy to contact him, and see what the man had to offer him.

Anko only knew of Sasuke biting his protest, and moved in to fill the silence with some more one-sided conversation. "What you need to know Uchiha, is that Orochimaru gave you a juinjutsu, a Curse Seal." At the confused expression on Sasuke's face, she elaborated. "What he gave you allows you to, in a sense, overdraw on your body's energy from a cellular level, not quite unlike the Hachimon (Eight Gates)." Here, she scowled. "But it is a lot more damaging than the Hachimon. While Hachimon releases your body's limits..." She brushed her hand over the three-tomoed seal on Sasuke's shoulder, causing the avenger in question to wince at the contact, "The **Tenshi no Juin** (Cursed Seal of Heaven) forcibly draws out energy and converts it into chakra. That..." Anko trailed off again, "And every subsequent usage of the Curse Seal allows Orochimaru to influence you mentally, and he can even cause you pain with but a single hand seal if he is within range."

Standing up, Anko gave him a pointed stare again. "The last intel that Konoha had on Orochimaru's Cursed Seal, only one in ten recipients survived its application." She paused, her eyes glazing out as she lost herself temporarily in memories. "I was the only one to survive out of the last lot."

_That_got Sasuke's attention. "W-what...But then that m-means-"

"Yes," Anko replied in a calm manner, pulling her trench jacket down from her shoulders, unveiling her bare shoulders. On her left shoulder was the same three-tomoed seal that was on Sasuke's shoulder. "I, too, was unfortunate enough to receive this curse." Looking back at Sasuke again, she didn't hesitate to stare harder than before, forcing Sasuke into visibly gulping in his nervousness. "I had enough sense not to use it, which was fortunate: Tsunade of the Sannin later diagnosed its medical side-effects, of which I told you. Had I used it too long even once, I would have become barren."

That hit Sasuke right at home. Sure, there were other Uchiha around who could help contribute to rebuilding their clan: Uchiha Raika had just recently had a son. However, he was clan heir, and would take the post soon upon his sixteenth birthday. He had to continue the main blood line, and he would not risk the possibility of becoming sterile, no matter whether Orochimaru had improved his curse seal in the last while or not to avoid such a condition.

"But, enough of that," Anko said, feeling that she had laid on the dangers of using the Curse Seal enough that Sasuke would have enough sense not to use it. "Under most circumstances, you would be unable to use chakra for many days. I'm surprised that you even are up already, even with a chakra and stamina infusion" she admitted, before adding, "It has been twenty-two hours since Orochimaru attacked you." Pacing back and forth, she remembered what else she had to talk about. "What you need to know is that by the rules of the Chunin exams, I am not allowed to interfere at all while it is progressing. That I am here, even talking to you about topics that lie outside of the exam itself, is in direct violation. ANBU has helped to collect your other two teammates, and have nursed them back to strength. You are the Uchiha heir: it is imperative that you make it through this exam and into the final exam. If you do, and you perform well, the prestige of the Uchiha shall increase, and so will Konohagakure's."

"I...see," was all that Sasuke had to say at first. Once he finished fully comprehending what Anko had told him, however, he quickly turned his head around, looking to either side as an unconscious reaction. "Where exactly did your ANBU take my teammates?"

Taking out her kunai again, Anko twirled it by the hilt, seemingly bored, though Sasuke wasn't fooled. She was tense and alert, and most of all, paranoid. She was also nervous, if her fingers gripping the kunai turning a ghastly white were of any indication. "We moved your teammates down the river a bit once we came upon you three. Your male teammate was still conscious, as Orochimaru distracted him with a snake summon, while the girl was unconscious from a heavy dose of tranquilizer. I don't know how long she will still be out for, but it should be soon. Ookami almost immediately extracted all the drug that she could from your teammate's body, but whatever it was, it apparently acted fast." Of course it would, having been a tranquilizer: Anko was merely saying it for Sasuke's sake.

"Hnn," Sasuke responded, rubbing the new seal on his neck. "Is there any way to seal this off?"

"There is," Anko admitted. "There are a couple of methods that can be used, but they all take a lot of time, and it is preferred for the sealing to be done in a sterile, flat environment. None of us here are qualified to do it, in any case, but I know that your former sensei and new sensei both are."

The clearing was silent after that. Eventually, Anko decided to break the quiet again. "We are currently two kilometres out away from the tower at the center of the Forest of Death. The snake left behind a Heaven Scroll for your team. My squad checked it out: it is legit, and it has no traps installed on it. The plan is for you and your two friends to make your way to the tower once you reunite. It has already been twenty-eight hours since the beginning of the exam, so that leaves you with just under four days once you make it to the tower, certainly more rest time than most of the other teams will have."

"Hnn." Was all that Sasuke had to say. He definitely wasn't pleased that he would miss out on fighting others in the Forest of Death, but that was the way the cookie crumbled for him. He wasn't foolish enough either to try fighting for the next little while if what Anko had said about the Tenshi no Juin was true.

On the other hand, once he got out of this damned forest, perhaps he should consider taking up some of the training offers he had received in the past and rejected out of hand. Getting beaten down like a fool had crushed his pride, and pride and honour was what drove him through his life, the both of them forming a part of his ego that felt the need to avenge the deaths of most of the clan at the hands of Uchiha Itachi.

"Oi, Sasuke-teme," Naruto said, making sure not to overdo the volume on his voice. "Are you alright? That girl...guy...thing looked like she...he...it... did a number on you earlier." He was actually confused himself as to what pronoun to use for Orochimaru, after all, one didn't get a body-hopping mad scientist every day to set precedent for gender usage.

Of course, that left him in a bit of a conundrum. One of the conditions that Itachi had mandated before joining Akatsuki that his brother was to be left unharmed, and had only recently changed the condition so that if Sasuke turned traitor, as was a possibility, he could be killed. It seemed even after having killed off most of his clan, Itachi still believed heavily in clan honour. Naruto owed Itachi respect, and he sympathised with Sasuke, even if he still didn't like him. He would do his best to convince Sasuke not to follow Orochimaru. To be truthful, if Anko had not shown up, Naruto would have been right with Sasuke as soon as he woke up, and try to prevent him from using the Tenshi no Juin once he woke up. To hear it from Kabuto, the first use of the seal was the most addictive, and allowed Orochimaru to gain a foothold into the user's psyche.

That Anko had been around to dissuade Sasuke from using it even once was a bonus, and they were now in a situation where they wouldn't have to use it. The ANBU and proctors had cameras set up near the tower entrance, and the spot they had indicated to Naruto to enter the tower from was free of any genin teams who had made a base to try and trap incoming teams.

"Naruto-baka, don't call Sasuke-kun that!" Sakura said, but she refrained from punching him, while also making sure to keep her voice low. She had taken quite some time to get the fact that they were ninja now, and that to make it as a kunoichi, she would need to change. She had finally gotten it only recently, but had been making strides to do it. Keeping a low voice while in territory surrounded by enemies and not punching her ally in the head was just two of those accomplishments.

"Hnn," was all Sasuke had to say. He didn't really feel like telling his two teammates about the seal for a while, but he knew that he had to at least inform them of his current one key weakness just in case. "You know that I can't use chakra for a while, right dobe?"

Naruto looked slightly downcast at that, before getting hyper again. "Yeah, ANBU filled us in. Said something about how using chakra too soon makes that hickey the snake gave you more dangerous than if you wait a while for it to stabilise."

_Hickey?_ Sasuke thought, before twitching uncontrollably.

Thankfully, his need to apply righteous fury to Naruto's choice of words was denied, as an ANBU jumped into the clearing. Anko had told him a little bit earlier about her ANBU team. If he was to guess, this one was Kawauso, given the inclination of the mask to look somewhat like an otter.

"Haruno-san, Uchiha-san, Uzumaki-san," the ANBU member said monotonously. "We have scouted out the way to the tower. There are currently no teams in between. We cannot guarantee another team will not set up a trap from that side of the hour in the time it takes you to get there, so we recommend you hurry up, and remember, _this encounter never happened_." Breaking from his standard monotone, the last four words were spoken in a hiss, causing Sakura to jump slightly.

"Hai, hai, we'll do our best, proctor-san," Naruto said, nodding quickly. Kawauso, feeling the situation was in control, left. Naruto turned back to his two teammates, and prodded them along. "Well, what are you waiting for? Let's get going!"

Incredibly, they made it to the base of the tower without running into any other teams. Naruto was pleased that they hadn't invoked Murphy's Law, though who the Murphy was who created the law he didn't know.

Inside, they were met with a predicament: on the wall hung a scroll, with two lines of kanji missing. Pooling their heads together for a solution, Sakura was the first to speak up. "Do you think it has to do with the two scrolls?"

Sasuked 'hnned', "Could be." Despite having progressed somewhat from her fangirl archetype, Sakura still swooned slightly at the light amount of praise.

"Well, what are we waiting for?" Naruto asked. Taking out the Heaven Scroll he had pocketed, he waited for Sasuke to take out his Earth Scroll. Together, the two unfurled the scrolls at the same time.

A bunch of smoke came as the scrolls summoned something forth, forcing Naruto to choke on the sudden intrusion into the clean air. As the smoke died down, however, he saw the figure who had appeared, and jumped forth, grabbing the figure in a hug. "Iruka-sensei!" He exclaimed with glee.

"Woah woah!" Iruka said, stumbling back a step before regaining balance. Setting Naruto down, he ruffled the blond's hair, and looked at Sasuke and Sakura. "It's been a while, you three. I heard about your mission to Nami, and the whole situation with Kakashi. You've had a rather eventful year, haven't you?" Sighing, he dispersed with the pleasantries. "I requested to be the chunin summoned for you guys, and Teams 8 and 10. Team 8 was disqualified earlier, and Team 10 still hasn't shown up. In fact," he lamented, rubbing his head idly, "You guys are the second team here after a Suna team!"

"Really?" Naruto asked, before pumping his fist into the air. "Oh, we're so awesome!"

"Calm down, Naruto!" Iruka reprimanded him, thankful when Naruto ceased his excessive motion. "Now, there is another reason I am here." Seeing the confused looks, he sighed again, before pointing at the scroll behind him. "That is a chunin motto written by Hokage-sama, with the missing words being 'Heaven' and 'Earth'. The full motto is 'If you lack Heaven, seek wisdom, be prepared. If you lack Earth, run in the field, seek advantages'. So, for example, you Naruto, would have to brush up on your knowledge to increase your strategic skills. Not everything can be won with brute force and sheer stamina." Turning to Sakura, he continued. "You have the opposite problem, Sakura. You are smart, but you must continue to train your body hard. A smart person cannot dodge a kunai if she cannot move fast enough."

"What about Sasuke-teme?" Naruto asked angrily, pointed at the Uchiha, who had up until then stayed out of the conversation.

"Sasuke...well, Sasuke fulfills both requirements," Iruka commented. "He might not be as good as either of you in your respective extremes, but he comes close in both, presenting a balanced shinobi. If you want to be a chunin, Naruto, you must be able to plan ahead. I know you think well on the fly, but a prepared shinobi could trap you in ways that split-second thinking cannot save you from. Even the mightiest have their weakness, such as perversion."

Naruto sat down, arms crossed, and nodded sagely at that last bit. He understood of course, but he had to put on the deception of having just understood what Iruka meant and gaining profound realisation from that. "Hmmm..." he said, before pumping out hand and jumping back up. "Yosh! I promise you Iruka-sensei, I'll try to study some more after this exam is over."

"You're a good kid, Naruto," Iruka said, rubbing the blonde's hair again. "You'll go far." Looking over at Sakura and Sasuke again, he nodded at both of them, "The two of you as well. You are the first Konoha genin rookie team to make it this far in five years." Putting his hands down, he figured that that was the end of the conversation in this room. "Come, you three. You have a little under four days left, let me show you to your rooms. Oh, and Sasuke," Here, he got a 'Hnn?' in response, "You'll be needed later on. I've been informed about the situation, and you'll need that sealed off." Another 'Hnn' was all he got in response, and Iruka sighed at the lack of enthusiasm at conversation of his past Rookie of the Year.

At last, one hundred and twenty hours had passed since the beginning of the second exam. Looking around at the floor of the battling arena, Naruto was curious to see just who had made it. Only five teams had made it. There was his team of course, and then there was Maito Gai's genin team, consisting of Rock Lee, Hyuga Neji and Higurashi Tenten. There were two teams from Suna that had passed as well. One of them consisted of the three children of Sabaku no Akira, which were Sabaku no Temari, Sabaku no Kankuro, and Sabaku no Gaara. There was also _his_ team. Finally, there was an Iwa team. So one of them had made it through, Naruto mused. Well, hopefully at least one member made it into the finals as well.

Up top on one side of the viewing area, Mitarashi Anko was conversing with Hiruzen Sarutobi, the Sandaime Hokage. "Hokage-sama," she made a graceful bow, "The danger period has passed for Uchiha Sasuke. We are unsure if Orochimaru tried to infiltrate the tower to get at the Uchiha again: if he did, he was unsuccessful. As more than three days have passed since the application of the seal, it should have since stabilised, and so Sasuke can use his chakra freely without the seal controlling it."

"Hmmm..." Sarutobi stroked his beard. There really wasn't that much to think about. Kakashi had just earlier sealed off the Curse Seal as a precaution, making it even less worrisome. Sasuke could beat most of the genin here easily. He would have to rig a match though to build up the momentum of excitement into the real finals. It would be all and well if he managed to beat someone from his own village or from Suna, but the civilian audience a month from now would be going wild with excitement and anticipation if the Uchiha heir was to beat an Iwa genin here.

Of course, it was rather disappointing that only one out of the three rookie Leaf teams that were nominated had made it this far. He had been hoping for a breakout this year, even if there hadn't been a single such team to make it this far in five years. "Very well, Mitarashi-san, thank you for reporting."

"As is the Hokage's will," Anko said, giving another bow before using the **Shunshin** to flicker away.

With several ANBU and jonin around to give him guard, Sarutobi stood up. "Ahem." With the audience quieting down at the clearing of this throat, he stood up and looked over them, lord of all that he surveyed. "Before we begin, there is something you should all know." Looking at the Iwa ninja specifically, he was surprised that they didn't try to heckle them. Most likely they didn't care to risk getting booted out over such a trivial act. Repressing a frown, he let his voice boom out again, leaving an echo behind in the enclosed stadium. "Have you ever wondered why we hold Chunin Exams between different villages?"

Seeing the perplexed expressions on most faces, even that of two of the Iwa genin, he continued, "We say it is in 'promoting friendship'. The truth is that the chunin exam is a substitute for war." Holding his hand up at the bursts of exclamation and indignation that sprung up, he continued to speak up over their protests. "Shinobi villages do not fight for land; rather, that is the purview of the daimyos. Villages fight for _influence_. Each village wants the most missions, which would give us the most money. War," he stopped for a second, before resuming again, manipulating the audience so keenly that they waited on his next few words with baited breath, "War causes influence to be lost and gained. But war also causes the deaths of hundreds, if not thousands."

Sweeping his eyes over his audience again, he once more proceeded to hypnotise them with his tale. "During the last great war, approximately twenty percent of all active shinobi on this continent were slain, and another fifteen percent forced to retire from war wounds. Notice that I said on this _continent_." The next words would of course set the Iwa ninja off, though they would have to keep from yelling back. "Those who actually were the major players in the war suffered the most casualties, with the defeated losing spectacular numbers."

"War is one way that villages can gain missions, but if they do not have the numbers to fill out all the missions that are requested, they will lose money overall. This is especially true when taking into account the costs of replacing the fallen shinobi. The Chunin Exams were designed as a substitute for this. Clients who request many missions from the shinobi villages can look at the future talents that each village is raising. If they think one village's chunin hopefuls is particularly strong, then surely their actual chunins and jonins must also be strong, and so they choose to direct more business to that village."

It was amazing, the wizened leader thought, how straightforward and honest he could be, and yet still have his audience hanging off his every word, his own subjects bound to be more loyal to Konoha. It always had worked. "This is why in eighty years, there have only been three great shinobi wars, and seven minor ones. Through this system, each village that is on the rise can attract more business without having to pay knee-deep in blood, while those in decline will realise that they must work doubly hard to gain back clients. A genin who performs well in his exam sends a message, a political one. That 'This village has great power'. That is why as representatives of your villages, you must fight as hard as you can, for the value and strength of a village is only as great as its shinobis."

"In this exam, you can kill, and you can maim. The proctor will step in if he thinks it has gone on far enough, but if you kill right away instead of toying with a wounded opponent, he cannot stop you in time." Here, he let a small smile take over his face. "Clients sometimes like a shinobi who is ruthless and merciless to his enemies. Now," he let his lips move back into his normal calm expression, "Go forth, and prove yourself to be the best!"

While all fifteen genins were thinking over what he had said, a small area on the floor in front of them suddenly filled up with smoke, quickly dispersing, revealing a black-haired Konoha-ninja. Standing up, those who were on the viewing floor could see the regal features of the tall man. Besides the black hair, he had that shade of brown eyes so dark that they were commonly referred to as onyx black, prominent crease lines down his face, and a daunting height of over six feet. The star on his uniform with a fan inside it only confirmed it: this man was a member of the Konoha Military Police Force, and an Uchiha one at that. Looking around to his back side, the man asked aloud, "Hokage-sama, if I may?"

Receiving a nod from Sarutobi, he turned around back to face his audience. "Greetings, genins. I am Uchiha Raika, a member of the Konoha Military Police Force. I am here today as your referee for the tournament preliminaries." Expecting a protest, he looked around at all fifteen chunin hopefuls. "Good, none of you are upset. Let me explain: our clients do not always have sufficient time. If we were to allow all fifteen of you into a tournament, it would require fourteen matches for a single-elimination knockout format. Even counting those who would inevitably format, there would still be too many matches. As a result, we must cut that number in half."

"There are only fifteen of us here," Neji mused, "But eight participants would be the best fit for a tournament. Will one of us be getting a bye, then?"

"That is correct," Raika nodded. "Look over there," he said, and the genins looked to where he was pointing to see a screen. "We have here a computer screen that will randomise the names of the genins to get each match. Seven matches will go through, and the lone shinobi or kunoichi left after that will be the lucky one to make it to the finals." He paused, taking a deep breath. "I say lucky, not only because you are guaranteed a spot to the finals, but because all the other genin here will be watching your battle. You must make a balance here: you need to show off enough to win, but you cannot show everything lest your opponent in the final plans for ways to negate everything you can do."

Looking over the genin again, he decided to finish up quickly. "As Hokage-sama has said before, killing and maiming are permitted in this exam. Of course, if I see a killing blow, I will interfere, but if you happen to be either crafty enough or quick enough to kill before I can stop you, that will not be held against you. That said," he craned his head back around, "The first match pairing may now be decided."

That was that, and the computer screen began to turn on. As the first block of text quickly scrolled through all fifteen names, many of the genin again held their breath. Finally, the name settled on **Higurashi Tenten**.

"Yosh!" Lee said from where he was standing next to Tenten. "Let your flames of youth burn brightly, Tenten-chan!"

Glad that Lee was only somewhat enthusiastic as opposed to crazy enthusiastic when he got in the mood, Tenten replied, "Thanks Lee." On her opposite side, she saw Neji give a nod of support. "But I want to see who my opponent is first."

Lazily, the computer screen scrolled through the second name, before finally stopping on **Awai Yattoko. **Raika looked up at it, and shouted, "Alright, everyone except for Tenten and Yattoko, please head up to the viewing area."

Maito Gai suddenly paled, and quickly appeared next to Tenten. "Tenten-san, I wish I could ask you to forfeit, but I know your pride will refuse it. Nevertheless, I must ask you to be very careful in this match."

Tenten, used to her sensei spouting off various eccentric sayings, was taken off guard by her sensei's request. Looking around, she saw many of the other jonins up next to the Hokage begin to buzz. "What? But why?"

"It is because of who Yattoko is," Gai told her. "The Awai name is not commonly known, but it is a dangerous family from Suna that has produced many prodigies, of which Yattoko may very well be the latest. Yattoko...he is..."

Naruto mused from above. If Tenten was strong enough to draw out any of Yattoko's moves and techniques that he had developed, then this would be an interesting match. Naruto had struck up a friendship with Yattoko, who had been privy to some of Suna and Akatsuki's dealings. However, Yattoko had refused to show him much of his self-developed repertoire. Whatever it was, it was bound to be deadly. The red-headed lean Yattoko, who had just stepped up to face off with Tenten, was, after all-

_The son of Akasuna no Sasori, the Yondaime Kazekage_.

**Wow, I bet I hit you with a whammy of a cliffhanger at the end there!**

**In any case, I finally made it over 80k words! That's at the rate of over 10,000 words a month! The story also hit over 50k hits a few days ago, so that's good news to me I guess. Sorry about the hiatus, but I'm back in action now, so hopefully I'll get some more chapters out fairly quickly. **

**Again with Anko development: I don't give a crap about fanon. She is a cold, efficient, loyal tokubetsu jonin of Konoha who did her best to intimidate the genin teams who made it to the second test. She is NOT an introvert who acts crazy and bloodthirsty on the outside to scare people off.**

**A bit with the Cursed Seal: I talk about the seal 'stabilising' a lot throughout the chapter. Basically, my belief is that for certain powerful seals, they take a while to get into full force. For example, with say the **Shiki Fuin**, the Kyuubi isn't instantly trapped, but has a few hours after being sealed away where he still has a little bit of power to influence his surroundings, but after that is completely blocked off. In the Cursed Seal's case, while the seal is stabilising, any use of chakra is dangerous as Sasuke is at his most vulnerable to being influenced by Orochimaru voice or whatever then, so here Sasuke has to refrain from using chakra. After the seal has stabilised he can use chakra again.**

**Other than that, I realise this chapter isn't too exciting, and I probably ended the Forest of Death sequence too quickly, but it should hopefully help to tie a few things up for later. Next chapter is the preliminary fights so that should be more interesting. I only have five teams instead of seven so they should go by a lot quicker. Hopefully you enjoyed the revised Sarutobi speech. I hate dialogue that copies canon word-for-word o_o.**

**In any case**

Warslasher: **I think I might have messaged you about this, but as I noted in the top, the last chapter is from _Naruto_'s point of view. He might think that Orochimaru didn't know that he was the Kyuubi container. It's more like Orochimaru knew, but just didn't care.**

KitsuneOverlord: **You don't see right in front of you, you can see about sixty degrees up and down from your position, but you can't see right underneath you or right above you. The idea is that this is the same **_**vertical**_** range that the Byakugan can see, but it can see horizontally around it in a 360 degree. If it had a total sphere of projection, then that would just completely screw up the Neji vs. Naruto fight in canon.**


	16. The Preliminaries, Part I

**Chapter Sixteen – 'The Preliminaries, Part I'**

**The fanfiction website is screwing over my dividers so I'll change it over the next few days. Sorry about the inconvenience.  
**

_The son of Akasuna no Sasori, the Yondaime Kazekage_.

Those words echoed in Tenten's mind, and she knew now why her sensei had warned her to be careful. Akasuna no Sasori was famous for having slain over three hundred Iwagakure shinobi in the Third Great Shinobi War. Even if Yattoko was not Sasori, he was still his son, and so he was bound to have something up his sleeve, something _powerful_. Tenten had already resigned herself to the fact that she would not make it into the finals: after all, she was only a second generation ninja, and her father had only made it to Tokubetsu Jonin status himself before retiring to work in the trades. However, she was determined to do as best she could here, and hopefully draw out some of Yattoko's special techniques, so that any of her fellow Leaf genin that might face him in the next stage of the Chunin Exams would have an advantage.

Across from her, the red-haired boy stood calmly, waiting for the match to begin, arms crossed over his chest. He was fairly non-descript; with his bright red hair, pale white skin and white robes, he could have easily passed for his father in his younger age. Tenten knew she would have to be a fool to believe the boy was unprepared. Doubtlessly he was only waiting for the proctor to start the battle.

Speak of the devil. Uchiha Raika backed away from the two, anticipating a fast, harsh brawl. "Are both fighters ready?" He asked, activating his swirling Sharingan eyes to keep better track of the battle.

Tenten nodded her head furiously. It was now or never. Yattoko merely gave a mere twitch of the face to indicate his readiness, his calm, unblinking face focused on Tenten all the while, slightly perturbing her. Raika took one last look between the two of them, before bringing his hand down. "Begin!"

Up from the stands, Naruto held back a smirk, internally shaking his head, all while keeping a calm, observant gaze at the battle. Earlier, he had seen the pose that Tenten had taken just before the battle had started: that of a defeated kunoichi. Within a few seconds, however, she had stood upright, looking every bit the defiant female again. Clearly she was going to give it her all. _Too bad for her_, _though._ Naruto didn't know the full extent of what Yattoko could do, but he knew a large portion of it, and what he did know terrified him of just how strong Yattoko might be when he fully matured into his abilities.

Where Akasuna no Sasori was known as the Scorpion, Yattoko was known as the _Pincer_.

Chakra was an odd, wonderful entity. It was an energy form that could take on a semblance of mass, and be manipulated to do multiple things. One such thing that it could do was form 'strings', which the user could send vibrations along back and forth, transmitting information and physical movements. This allowed a puppeteer to control his puppets, while also receiving visual and auditory feedback from his creations.

However, chakra also had its limitations. For example, it could only 'travel' straight or in a parabola, restricting the chakra string between a puppeteer and his puppet to either being a straight line or going in a steady wave-like movement. While a puppeteer could hardly be considered a close-range combat fighter, this also meant he could only control a limited area in front of him, as he could hardly curve a chakra string around his opponent to hit him from the back. A few had worked their way around this. Akasuna no Sasori did it with sheer brute force, amassing over a hundred puppets that he could call up if he was ever pressed to reveal his complete power. Hakko Awai had done it through the use of clones.

One person, however, had defied the laws and limits imposed on chakra. How he had done it, Yattoko would not reveal to anybody, not even his own father.

Tenten could only allow herself a split second to gape, before she had to jump backwards to evade, of all things, a _mace_. Having been dodged, the weapon quickly flew back to Yattoko before it disappeared from sight. Tenten was not even allowed a split second as Yattoko through a ball at the ground in front of him, exploding into a big burst of smoke, blocking off all visibility. Taking a deep breath, she quickly moved to one of the arena walls, theorising that she would be better off if she could only be attacked from three sides and from above in the smoke.

She wouldn't make it to the wall, however. Only through sharp hearing and instinct honed through a year's training underneath a highly physical instructor allowed her to hear the whistle of another weapon through the air. Jumping high into the air through the use of chakra, she temporarily rose above the cloud of smoke. With the few seconds of visibility granted to her, she back-flipped away from the epicentre of where Yattoko had launched the smoke bomb, trying to put as much distance away from the opposing genin as possible.

While flying through the air, however, she saw several kunai flying at her out of the smoke. She made to take out a pair of kunai to knock all of them away, only for her body to freeze as she saw what she considered to be the impossible happen: the kunai suddenly _curved_ in mid-air while still coming towards her. Shaking her thoughts quickly, she let the adrenaline course through her body as she barely parried all the kunai from different directions.

Landing on the ground, she saw the kunai she had batted away suddenly retract back into the now mostly-visible area of smoke that the Kazekage's son had created. _Chakra strings_, she told herself, even though the studies of foreign techniques in the Academy had never said anything about a chakra string being able to curve like that, but it made sense with his father being a puppeteer.

However, the tempo for had been set, as Tenten had already been pushed hard on the defensive. The immediate danger suddenly gone, her body's release of adrenaline was declining. She would have to either end the battle soon or get an adrenaline rush back again or else she would risk a crash. Knees bent to take off from the ground again in the face of this unusual fighting style, she waited as the rest of the smoke cleared away, leaving Yattoko Awai in a mostly standing position, but with his arms and hands outstretched in front of him.

Quickly collecting her breath, Tenten reached up down into her slacks, grabbing a scroll held on an inside holster on each side of her hips. There was no shame in using her trump card if it would force him to reveal something that his next opponent could counter...right?

It was a rather remarkable style, Naruto observed. The hands and wrists had a large number of the bones in the body, and similarly they had over one hundred of the three hundred sixty one tenketsu points on the human body. Yattoko had engraved a storage seal on the joints of each of his fingers and thumbs, giving him twenty-eight in all. Through expert control of his chakra, coming from years of using chakra strings from those same digits, he could call up any of the weapons that he held in his seals in less than a fifth of a second, and could similarly put it away in less than a fifth of a second. Combined with his unique talents in chakra strings, he could hit somebody from ten different directions with ten different weapons in less than a second, forcing a fast victory if he needed to.

Of course, he knew the Kazekage's son was just toying with Tenten, or else it would indeed have been ended in a second. He had only met Yattoko on a few occasions, becoming sort of distant friends, but he could already tell the boy was one who liked to analyse an opponent as much as possible before finishing him or her off, probably hoping to find something he could fit into his own style.

Speak of the devil. Yattoko had given Tenten a break, most likely waiting for her to pull out a trump card if she had any. Leaning forward on the railing of the viewing area, Naruto watched as Tenten took out a pair of large scrolls, placing them on the stone floor. She briefly touched both scrolls, channelling chakra from her hands into the rolls of paper, before they began to rise into the air and release smoke. With continued interest he watched Tenten jump into the air, grabbing onto the scrolls and then furling them open. **"Sōshōryū" (Twin Rising Dragons)** Tenten shouted out as the kanji on the unfurled scrolls suddenly lit up.

Naruto had to whistle at the display as a mass of weapons came out of both scrolls, all of them honing in on Yattoko. He liked to think he had fast eyes, but even he could not keep a track of the flurry of kunais, swords, senbon, shuriken and various other assorted weaponry that came out, though he noted the metal wires attached to several of the larger pieces of equipment. No matter, he was confident Yattoko had something up his sleeve to counter the move.

Yattoko took the opportunity to prove him correct. One second, Yattoko was in his assumed position, and the next, he had a large metal shield easily several meters in its dimensions flying out from his person. Naruto covered his ears quickly using his hands, and just in time: even the muffled screech of metal against metal dealt a few seconds of minor pain to his hypersensitive hearing as the shield blocked all the items that Tenten had summoned out of the scroll.

Tenten took a second to gape at the shield, before she tried to pull back on the weapons that were attached to her fingers by metal wire. To her surprise, the wires all turned up slack. She attempted to move, but before she had a chance to react, she felt cold metal at her neck.

"Surrender now," A voice hissed in her ear, as the rest of her body caught up with what had just happened. An arm around her neck and body heat not her own affecting her back alerted her to Yattoko's presence, and it did not take much to deduce he had just gotten her with a kunai to the neck.

Refraining from gulping or swallowing with her neck precociously close to a razor-sharp edge, she spoke carefully. "Proctor, I surrender."

Throughout the whole battle, it seemed as if the observing area had been holding its breath, and it had just released it. A quick buzz sparked up, as several of the genin began to talk to each other. Yattoko had barely had to move, and only a few of them had seen his movements as he first cut through all the metal wires and then come up behind Tenten.

Naruto looked at the boy in green spandex who had earlier been with Tenten down in the arena. Quickly going through his mind to see whether he was 'supposed to' have an idea of who this boy was, he came out in the affirmative when remembering a couple of classes between the upper-years back in the Academy. "Yo, you're Rock Lee, right?" He asked the chunin hopeful.

The boy spun around, catching Naruto off-guard with the ferocity in his eyes. "Yosh! That I am! What do you wish to ask of me?" He queried, grabbing Naruto's hands in his own

"Uh...right..." Naruto said, slightly perturbed. Freeing his hands away, he pointed down to Tenten, noticing Yattoko whispering another couple of words to Tenten and the kunoichi blushing. Figured Yattoko would at least be a bit of a playboy. "She's your teammate, right?" Cutting Lee off before he could go on another awkward tangent, Naruto continued, "Not to be rude or demeaning or anything, but I think she needs to diversify her talents a little bit more."

Lee frowned. "That is not very nice, Uzumaki Naruto-kun," though he privately slightly agreed, "Tenten takes great pride in her abilities with weapons. It is that which stokes her flames of youth!" Again, he had begun to get flamboyant towards the end, pointing one index finger to the sky.

"While you make a good point, Naruto," A deep voice came from behind the flaxen-haired genin, "Leave that to her sensei to help her. Maito Gai is a good sensei, if a bit eccentric, and I am sure that Tenten-chan has been taught other things that she does not use on a regular basis."

Naruto whirled around at the familiar voice, coming face-to-face with his sensei. "Yamato-sensei!" He exclaimed. "I didn't see you with the Hokage earlier, where were you?"

Yamato allowed a small grin. "I had a few other things to take care of that only I could do, but I managed to free up some time to come and watch you finally." Eying the arena and its undamaged state, he quickly deduced the lack of matches. "I assume that was the first match?" Getting a nod, Yamato stroked his chin. "Good, good. Well, congratulations on making it to the third round, Naruto-kun, even if it is the preliminaries. I guess I made a good choice in nominating you three."

"You guess?" Naruto threw his hands up in the air in mock protest. "You mean you weren't entirely faithful in our abilities to make it this far, Yamato-sensei?"

"Now, now, Naruto," Yamato said, only partially going along with the act, "You do have to remember you three are rookies, and besides, I have had you for less than half the time that the other jonin senseis have had the rookie teams. Although," he noted wryly, "That you were the only rookie team to make it here is icing on the cake for me to mention to Asuma or Kurenai-san." Asuma seemed to be optimistic that his team had gotten lost but was still alive. Yamato certainly hoped so.

As Naruto was busy squawking a "Yamato-sensei!" out in protest, Rock Lee, who had up until now been silent in the face of the conversation between student and sensei, decided to butt in. Grabbing Naruto by the shoulders with one arm, he shouted, "Yosh! The flames of youth burn wildly in you, Naruto-kun! I can see why Gai-sensei has praised your team so and warned us to watch out for you!"

"Lee-san," Yamato spoke up. When the green-donning genin turned around, the Shodai quasi-clone fixed him with a weak version of his scary face, causing Lee to jump back, freeing Naruto up from his grip. "My student needs to fight now, you know."

"...Huh?" was all Naruto had to respond before turning around to see the board. On the top was his name **Uzumaki Naruto**. Quickly looking down, he watched the other bar scroll through several names before it settled on **Shoja Akatsuchi**.

Naruto took in a deep breath once he remembered his opponent from his intelligence reports. Good Kami, he was fighting the grandson of Ganseki, the golem summoner. Feeling a squeeze on his shoulder, he turned around to see Yamato looking at him, slightly worried with his eyebrows creased. "Naruto," Yamato warned, "I want you to be very careful. Your opponent is related to a man who can summon inanimate constructs called golems. I have no idea if Akatsuchi has had any training from his relative, but you should be very careful none the same. Forfeit if you have to."

Naruto nodded, gaining a grim look on his features. "H-Hai, sensei."

And so it was, only a minute later, that Naruto found himself looking opposite his opponent. The black-haired larger Akatsuchi looked deceptively fat, much like Chouji was (or rather, had been), but Naruto was not fooled. One hit from this guy could knock him out if it was to the wrong part of this body, notwithstanding the golem the guy could vomit out from his mouth. He would have to be careful to feign surprise should Akatsuchi pull that golem technique out, as well as not display too much of his own prowess. That was the key: as much as he knew he could easily defeat Akatsuchi without much effort, he could not show off too much strength or else questions would be asked. Although it would sting his pride, if worse came to worse he would have to forfeit and not go to the finals.

"Konoha genin," Akatsuchi hissed in a surprisingly high voice, a yellow scarf around his throat, signalling his hostility before the battle had even begun.

Naruto didn't let himself be fazed, as he growled back at his opponent in a low guttural tone, "Iwa genin." Tugging at the hem of his black sleeve, he pulled out a kunai from the inside.

Up above in the observing area, Sarutobi watched over the proceedings, analysing the scenario with a calm, methodical eye. _This should be interesting_, he thought to himself. _Don't prove a disappointment to me, Naruto-kun._

Uchiha Raika, who had had a fairly easy first match, particularly with a genin who had not deigned to kill his opponent even though he could have with his speed, braced himself for what he foresaw as a likely huge second match, and decided that he should leave his Sharingan eyes activated. Looking between the two, he asked, "Are both fighters ready?" Getting furious nods from each genin, he went through the customary raising of his arm, before lowering it again. "Begin!"

**Well, that's the end of that chapter. I know I said I would try to start updating quicker, but Yattoko's style of attack took me far too long to brainwash up :/ I originally was going to have at least two, possibly three fights in this chapter, got to the end of the first match, went "meh", looked at story stats and realised there hasn't been a short chapter in a while, and concluded it up quickly. The next chapter should have a lot more meat to it, and the prelims should be wrapped up in three chapters, though I'll have to come up with a few more OCs to fill it out.**

**That said, in this chapter, I wrote some stuff from Naruto's perspective for a good reason: he knows what some of the Sand genin can do, and their history. I'm not going to have everyone suddenly stop in the middle of the battle and monologue about what they can do. They're bloody ninja.**

**As a side note, for those of you who might have been wondering when Rise of a Kitsune is getting an update, it's going through a rewrite. Far too many clichés that I don't really like, plus the rewrite is geared to progress a lot smoother into what I had overall planned for the storyline.**

**The fanfiction website is screwing over my dividers so I'll change it over the next few days.  
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**That said**

**Hells Mercenary –** Pretty much, I dislike how Naruto broadcasts his hate for all of Konoha to see. Artful Lounger has a pretty good subversion in _Kage no Naruto_

**Lazy Bastard** – Wait and see!

**greywizard_dumbledort** – My reasoning goes a bit like that on both points. Canon Sasuke goes nuts when activating the Curse Seal in the Forest of Death, but at the VotE, he doesn't really go nuts until Level 2, suggesting some level of resistance after he regains his body strength.

**Also, I threw up three Naruto story challenges on my profile. For those who are interested, a basic rundown:**

**Retro Naruto**

This one requires a bit of background. Read Deathfire-san's 'Only Human' or MystikD109's 'A New Cause'. The former was started in January 2007 and finished 6 months later, while the latter was started up in 2004 and finished in 2005. Mystik's Akatsuki is nothing like what Akatsuki is today, because few details had been released on Akatsuki at that time. Akatsuki in Only Human strongly resembles canon!Akatsuki but it was done before the second databook was released, so there are little bits such as Kakuzu being 300 years old, and since it was before the Jiraiya visits Ame arc, the author envisions the Akatsuki leader to be a sort of technological villain. Most chapters of 'The Nine Broken Mirrors' by Ayien and of 'Lost Soul' by LD 1449 are also good to read to get an idea of what I mean.

Point being, these authors started about 150-250 issues ago, so they had to create their own worlds . That's what the challenge of 'Retro Naruto' is all about. Forget all the recent history with Pein and Madara. Don't use anything that was introduced beyond the end of the Kakuzu and Hidan arc (with a couple of exceptions - you can feel free to use the authentic tailed beasts, since the Legend of the Tailed Beasts is bs, as well as actual real names such as Namikaze Minato and Hiruzen being Sarutobi's first name. If you really want you could get away with jinchuuriki and kage identities), if that: you could even use only Part I material + Kakashi Gaiden and pretend Part II doesn't exist at all.

A few of you might ask: "What's the point?" Well, it seems to me like a lot of writers have basically become constrained by canon material instead of trying to expand on it. A ton of fics are basically just rewritten canon with a bit of a twist thrown in. If you ditch the whole Rinnegan, super-ultra-mega Sharingan, ROOT, the planned Uchiha coup, etc., then you have to come up with your own ideas on a lot of things, like why Itachi killed the clan, what the relations are between the hidden villages, what the motives of the Akatsuki are, who leads the Akatsuki, etc, while still keeping the core of the story of Naruto's perservance in odds roughly the same.

There aren't really any specific other guidelines to follow here other than what has been followed before.

**Normal Naruto**

I s ee a lot of fics where the Kyuubi never attacked and so Naruto gets to grow up as the Yondaime's son.

The challenge for this fic is to take a twist on that. Naruto is no longer the son of the Yondaime. Instead, he is a normal person who isn't related to royalty or clans or any Hokage, and he ISN'T a jinchuuriki. Again, he is NORMAL, at least by shinobi standards. He doesn't have a bloodline either. Yes, this Naruto may as well be an OC, but then most fics see a Naruto who is basically an OC anyways, just thrown into canon!Naruto's circumstances. What differs here is that this 'Normal Naruto' shares most of canon!Naruto's personality: loyal, with unwavering willpower and endless determination.

**Mute Naruto**

I've seen se veral blind Naruto fics, a few deaf Naruto fics, and a few others where he is missing a limb or is unable to use chakra at all, but only a couple of Mute Naruto fics, with one of those being decent. Being mute, for Naruto, is arguably the least debilitating physical defect that he could have (as even real life military organizations use hand signs a lot, and you can write shinobi up as doing the same). However, it does have two big effects: canon!Naruto acts out for attention, but a Naruto without a voice, while still able to do the same, is much more ineffective in doing so. Additionally, he has to communicate through hand signs, expressions, or through the written word. This would develop his patience at least, but also make him a bit less optimistic and a bit more moodier. Additionally, since he cannot speak, he cannot verbalise a jutsu when he uses it. Depending on what school of fanon thought you subscribe to, verbalising a jutsu isn't necessary, but helps significantly in concentration and stabilisation of the jutsu, so Naruto will have to work around that.


	17. The Preliminaries, Part II

**Chapter 17 – 'The Preliminaries, Part II'**

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**Back for a second round of the Chunin Prelims, as the second match begins between Naruto and Shoja Akatsuchi of Iwa!**

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For such a large figure, Akatsuchi moved fast, and he moved forward as soon as Raika had started to speak, exploiting a loophole in which he need only wait for Raika to start saying "Begin", instead of waiting for him to finish the word. Sending a strong uppercut at the puny blonde genin, he felt satisfaction for a fleeting moment as his gauntlet made a sharp slam against the hyoid bone, only for it to go away as his opponent dispersed into thin air, a small wisp of smoke being the only remainder of the phantasm left behind.

Akatsuchi quickly considered the technique to have been a Kawarimi before he dismissed it, as there had been no weapons left behind in the clean-up from the previous match, the arena floor was still smooth with no displaced stones, and only a very talented Wind element user could Kawarimi with the air itself. That left the Bunshin class of jutsus, one that had a physical presence. His estimation of the unknown genin (who had not come from any known clan) went up in his head, and he quickly vowed to be more cautious.

Turning around, he saw three Narutos standing near the far wall, as if taunting him with his inability to know which one was the real one. No matter, it was said that except for Iwa Bunshins and Suna Bunshins, any other clone would fall apart with the slightest tap. Adjusting the metal gauntlets he held over his hands, he slammed a fist into the stone ground, causing a deep crack to form. More importantly, it sent a deep tremor through the ground, throwing all three Narutos off balance. Each of the three managed to stop their trip down to the stone floor by using their hands, but the force of gravity still dispersed all three of them, banishing them to incorporeality. Bah, the real one wasn't among them.

Highly-honed instinct allowed him to put his gauntlet up and catch a foot that was coming for his face. He was unable to catch the second foot, which caught him in the unarmoured chest, sending him reeling back a bit. Naruto, unable to free his first foot from Akatsuchi's hand, settled for using his free leg to deliver a fast scissor kick to the exact same spot he had just hit on his opponent's chest. It had less force behind it this time, but the second hit to his bruised spot was all that was needed to stun Akatsuchi for another second, his hand letting go of Naruto's foot.

Despite the pain, Akatsuchi kept his mind disciplined, and quickly swung out, managing to tap Naruto on a cheekbone while he was retreating. It wasn't much, even wearing his gauntlet, but it was a satisfactory trade-off for the damage he had received.

With the opening salvo completed, Naruto blocked out the white noise in the background as the audience began to buzz, rubbing his cheek to see just how much damage he had taken from the hit. Although it stung slightly, his tongue did not detect the metallic taste of blood on the inside of his mouth, which was good enough. He had not revealed any of his abilities during that battle, and he was able to suppress the natural battle instincts he had built up over a half-decade's time.

Akatsuchi moved in again to make a swipe at Naruto, only to back off for a brief few seconds as Naruto threw a handful of shuriken at the bulking giant. They were easy to deflect, but his body protested slightly at being forced to decelerate abruptly, and the cool stone floor simply did not act well as something to burn momentum on through friction. The brief lull granted by his stop allowed Naruto to continue to move backwards, before hopping up onto the wall.

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"Hmm, interesting..." Yamato said, mostly to himself, as he watched the proceedings going on below him.

"What's interesting, Yamato-sensei?" asked Sakura, having moved over from the opposite end of the viewing arena once she had seen her sensei arrive, while simultaneously dodging advances from the weird kid with a bowl cut who had suddenly tried to throw himself upon her. She was worried about where that 'Ino-bunta' was, as she and Team 10 had never shown up to the tower.

"Well, Sakura-chan, you know that your teammate naturally has a lot of energy, correct?" He got a nod. Pointing at the scene below, where Akatsuchi had followed Naruto up onto the wall opposite the viewing arena, he continued, "I would say that among all the genin in this tournament, Naruto probably has the most amount of stamina out of any of them. Now," jabbing his thumb at the current spate of close-combat the two went through, before Naruto backed off again, "No matter how hard he worked, Naruto still had poor taijutsu skills three months ago, and I could only bring him up to decent levels, not above-average. His opponent has both the size and the skill advantage, so Naruto is fighting him in the only way he thinks he might have a chance."

"Through stamina," Sakura suddenly said, realising the point that Yamato had been trying to make. "He's trying to make his opponent tired through extended usage of chakra and by going through several spurts of short but intense activity."

"Precisely," Yamato responded, "Stamina is Naruto's natural strength, so he is wielding it as his weapon. Whether it comes through or not remains to be seen."

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Akatsuchi had guessed as much as to what Naruto was doing himself. No longer was his body in a cool, homogeneous state, as he was beginning to sweat hard, while his Konoha opponent's skin was only just now beginning to flush. The gauntlets he wore around his hands and the steel-toed boots he wore also were working against him, as four of the biggest heat outlets on his body were sealed up. Even his chakra was beginning to run low, having been lured into the trap of fighting on the wall.

No more. _Sorry grandfather_, he thought to himself, _but I'm going to have to use it_. Abandoning the wall, leaving a clueless Naruto behind, he went to the center of the room. Putting his hands together in a quick set of seals, he summoned up two Iwa Bunshins using the cool earth that was underneath the crushed stone where he had earlier hit the floor. The two clones were to be distractions and bodyguards to give him the necessary time to do his next move.

Naruto had, by this time, remembered Yamato's words about Akatsuchi's relative, and quickly moved in to stop him from summoning a golem, only to be intercepted by the two Iwa Bunshins. He winced as he stopped a karate chop with his arm, but took advantage of it and grappled with the Bunshin that had just attacked him, smashing it against the ground and breaking it into pieces. With one Bunshin down, he turned to the other. Barely dodging a punch to the head that he had no doubt would feel like an anvil had it landed, he grabbed the Bunshin's errant arm in mid-air and threw it down to the ground, twisting its head hard enough to snap the clone's neck, making a few of the observing genin wince at the sudden brutality, no matter that it was a clone.

Suddenly, Naruto's visibilility drastically decreased. Looking to the ground, he saw a circular shadow around him that was quickly getting bigger. Not even sparing a moment to look up, he sprinted out of the radius covered by the shadow: not a second too soon, as the whole room shuddered at the impact of the golem hitting the floor.

Looking back at his opponent, Naruto saw Akatsuchi standing on top of the construct of rock and stone. With a flair for the dramatics, Akatsuchi pointed at his foe, and started talking. "You've lasted longer than I expected, Konoha genin, but it ends here. Witness the power of my golem, and cower as it cru-" He was cut off as a kunai came straight for his face. Deflecting it with his gauntlet, he looked down, only to find four Narutos, one heading to each corner of the arena. Growling at the continued usage of the clones by his opponents, he shouted out for the whole room to hear, "You can run, but you cannot hide!"

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Up on the top viewing area, Sakura was gripping the metal rail tightly, her knuckles turning white as she watched her teammate fight the good fight. She wasn't fooling herself: had she been in his place, she would already be out of the match, if not dead given the Iwa genin's bloodthirstiness. Without moving her head, she queried her teacher. "Yamato-sensei...do you think Naruto can win?"

Yamato was unsure himself, but decided to try to at least reassure his female student. "Without a doubt. The odds are against him," He quickly added, shooting down Sakura's hopes, "But it's not impossible for him. He's going towards the corners, though, so I think I have an idea of what he's hopinh to accomplish."

Sakura was about to ask what he meant, but Naruto's next action helped to answer her question. In the dry indoor arena, water elemental users were often at a disadvantage thanks to the environment. As a result, whenever a match was to occur, a barrel of water was placed at each corner for a person to use if it was necessary. It was a resource that each of the four Narutos were currently exploiting, each going through a single seal to turn the water into a mist. Although the upper areas of the room were mostly unaffected, down in the area below, there was a thick clump of mist that now hid the two fighters, the golem, and the proctor.

Sakura finally turned to face Yamato, incredulously. "You taught him the **Kirigakure no Jutsu** (Hidden Mist Jutsu)?"

Yamato nodded. "Yes, I did. It is one of the simplest Suiton elemental jutsus, perfect for distorting scent and sight." Pausing, he decided whether to add another piece of information, and continued. "Your teammate has a very high hearing level, so in this environment he can dominate, particularly since a golem is unlikely to be quiet."

"I...see..." was all Sakura had to say before trailing off. Looking down back at the mist, she had to marvel at how much Naruto had improved.

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Akatsuchi had managed to remain calm throughout the whole battle, but he was furious now. He had called out his own personal golem, only for the blond Yondaime look-a-like to have levelled the playing field once more. True, he still had the upper hand, but while the Konoha genin could move silently, his golem would lumber around and create lots of noise. Furthermore, summoning the golem had taken about three quarters of his remaining chakra, leaving him very low on energy.

The battle wasn't over yet, so he had to calm down, and think. A couple of deep breaths later, he had an idea. Speaking quietly to his golem, he ordered it, "Attack the ground as hard as you can, and repeat attacking it until I tap you." Immediately after, he took a huge breath, one that should last for over five minutes, and then moved down from the top of the golem and hung onto its side, using its body as a shield.

The animated construct moved slowly, but it followed his order perfectly, as it brought its right hand down into the ground, sending another tremor through the room. More importantly, the floor at the point of impact exploded, sending stone shrapnel every which way, and contaminating the mist with dust and grain. The golem repeated this over and over again, in the hopes of flushing out Akatsuchi's target by forcing him to end the mist technique so he could actually breath.

What Akatsuchi failed to account for was Naruto's ingenuity, and the sheer amount of chakra he had. He was smart enough to try to kick up a bunch of dust, and even used the Golem as a shield to block any projectiles, but he had forgotten that Naruto had had at least three clones in the area, possibly four if the real one was hiding elsewhere. Under normal circumstances this would not have been a problem: however, each Naruto clone still possessed its own significant share of chakra, and could still perform a few more jutsus even after the combined usage of the Kirigakure no Jutsu.

One such jutsu that the clones could use that Naruto could display without fear of questions being asked was the **Shuriken Kage Bunshin no Jutsu** (Shuriken Shadow Clone Jutsu).

Of course, the golem managed to block most of the projectiles, but it could only protect against three directions. Its backside, which Akatsuchi was latching off of, was exposed, and so it was that Akatsuchi had to fend several shuriken off in the zero visibility mist. He was able to get off all but one.

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There was a sudden shift in the atmosphere below, as suddenly a burst of killing intent shot out from below. The audience was on sudden alert, waiting for the next pivotal move in the battle.

The golem exploded out of the mist and smoke, Akatsuchi still holding onto its back, before it grabbed onto the railings separating the arena from the audience area, startling off several people.

"AAARGH, YOU BASTARD!" Akatsuchi shouted out, and it was then that everyone truly focused on the Iwa genin. To the shock of many, they saw that he was holding his gauntlet up to his head, right next to his left ear, where there was a large amount of blood running down. "YOU CUT OFF MY EAR! I'LL KILL YOU!"

That got the attention of the black-haired, lean female Iwa genin, who ran to Akatsuchi and shouted at him, "No, stop! It's a trap!"

Akatsuchi ignored his female companion's advice, and moved his attention back to the golem again. "Golem, take one of these metal bars," Here, he motioned to the rails, "And go down there and smash the floors and the walls until you find that genin! And then-"

The female, still standing nearby, once more tried to get her teammate's notice. "Damnit, stop! He's luring you in!"

Akatsuchi twisted his head around, the blood from his ear running down his face and throat now. To the female's horror, his face was pale white again, and the intensity in his eyes had subsided, both signs of exhaustion. "No, Kurotsuchi! I won't...I won't give...give...up..." By then, however, it was over. Naruto's strategy had taken some time in coming, but the sudden quick loss of blood had finally hastened the slow process, as Akatsuchi fainted.

Kurotsuchi jumped forward past the railings, grabbing her teammate before he could fall down. The golem, with its master fainted and his order interrupted, dropped to the ground, finally becoming inanimate. With the passed-out Akatsuchi in her hands, Kurotsuchi sighed. It seemed she had no choice. Calling out into the mist, she announced "Proctor, this match is over!" She grit her teeth at having to say that, swearing revenge on the blonde genin known as Uzumaki Naruto if it were possible.

With her words, the arena finally began to clear up; within a few seconds, visibility was greatly restored, and she could see blond next to black. A few more seconds later, she could make out the clear form of Uzumaki Naruto standing next to Uchiha Raika. "I quite agree," the latter agreed, before making it official. "The winner of this match-up is Uzumaki Naruto!"

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In the ensuing minutes, Sarutobi watched calmly as several of his shinobi did a basic clean-up of the arena. While there was no time to clean it up totally, and that would have partly defeated the purpose of the exam anyways, it was undesirable to be as messy as it had been. Some, but not all of the rubble would be cleared away to simulate a natural battle environment.

Looking up over at the general viewing area, he watched as Uzumaki Naruto, the son of his successor the Yondaime, was congratulated by most of the Konoha retinue, though Uchiha Sasuke and Hyuga Neji strayed away. Narrowing his eyes, he started calculating what to do. _Jiraiya-kun is back in town, and now that little Naruto-kun has proven he has some talent, his skills need to get back up to speed. Hopefully Jiraiya-kun can take a look at the Kyuubi seal, while he is at it. Heaven knows it would be difficult if the Kyuubi were to influence him from his path, that would be rather undesirable. Minato's son needs to get strong soon to strike fear in the hearts of all our rivals._

"Hokage-sama," Uchiha Raika had come up to him suddenly, "Preparation for the next battle is over. Permission to select the new match-up?"

The Sandaime had hardly been surprised by Raika's approach, skilled as he was. Stroking his beard, he nodded. "Of course."

"As is your will, Hokage-sama," Raika gave a final bow, before going back to the arena floor again.

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"Wow Naruto," Sakura said, praising her teammate, "You did really good out there!"

"I have to admit," Yamato said, "I'm surprised myself. You had me worried for a while there for a bit once he pulled out the golem, but you pulled through in the end."

"Yeah," Tenten praised, having come over, partially to congratulate Naruto, partially to keep her teammate and sensei from launching into a speech about the springtime of youth. "You did good out there, you really showed that Iwa guy who's boss!"

"Aw, shucks, thanks guys," Naruto said, rubbing his cheek, where he had been earlier hit. He would have said some more, only to be interrupted by Raika.

"May I have your attention please," the Uchiha father boomed out, catching back the straying attention of everyone in the room. "The arena is now back in acceptable condition for battle, so the next match-up shall now be chosen." Motioning to the screen, multiple pairs of eyes followed, watching as the board scrolled and ended first on one name (with a few gasps and intakes of breath from the Suna regiment), and then a second name.

**Sabaku no Gaara vs. Kojote Rote**

The red-headed Gaara was quick to make his way to the bottom of the arena, showing off his ability to use a **Suna Shunsin **in the process, waiting for his opponent from the other Suna , the boy who was a member of the same village stood up where he was on the observation decks. The blonde-haired boy could visibly be seen swallowing in nervousness: he knew that even though Gaara was relatively mild in temperament, he still was the host to a demon (or so Rote thought, in any case), and he was nowhere at the skill level needed to possibly take on a jinchuuriki. It was with self-preservation in mind that he shouted down, "Proctor, I forfeit!"

"Well..." was all Raika had to say for a moment, as the room suddenly quieted down for a moment. Taking a look at Gaara, he saw the red-head nod, before making his way to walk back up. He had no doubts as to why Gaara's opponent forfeited. Speaking up again, he announced, "Kojote Rote has forfeited, therefore Sabaku no Gaara shall advance to the next round. The next match-up will now be decided." He observed as several of the observers leaned forward in anticipation again, as the next match-up displayed itself on the screen.

**Sabaku no Temari vs. Haruno Sakura**

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Sakura's teeth chattered. She had little intelligence on her opponent, except that someone had just forfeited automatically to the sandy-brown's brother. That didn't speak well of her chances against Temari. She just began to get more and more anxious, up until she felt a strong grip on her shoulder. Looking around, green eyes met blue. "Naruto?" she quizzed him.

"It's alright, Sakura", he said, squeezing her shoulder as a show of support. "Just go in there and try out best. Even if you are dominated, Suna is our ally. She would not do anything untowards to you out of fear of harming diplomatic relations."

It made sense to her, and she nodded her pink-haired head, a little bit more confident than before. "Yes!" She said, already feeling a bit better about her chances.

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It was rather amazing, Naruto marvelled to himself, just how easily people could be manipulated with words. Oh, there were people who couldn't be so easily maneuevered, such as politicians and experienced shinobi, but those who had little cause to suspect deception (or just little paranoia) would accept his words just like that.

Sakura had taken confidence from a mere few words from him, and used that confidence to charge head-on into a battle. Of course, she hadn't lasted very long. She had initially tried to do a Bunshin, copying his own strategy, but Temari had swung her fan in Sakura's general direction. As the pinkette's clones were just illusions, the real one was exposed rather quickly as being the only one to fly back from the wind, causing that strategy to go out the window.

Similarly, the girl had tried to throw a kunai at Temari's fan, to no avail: no self-respecting wind mistress would carry a war fan around that didn't have a metal cover to it, and so the kunai had bounced off the fan harmlessly. From there, it was rather pathetic, really. As much as Sakura had improved in the last few months under Yamato's direction, she was still outmatched by the sandy-brown royalty from Suna, and also mismatched, as she had no weapons or jutsu that might have helped her. The match was over rather quickly as Temari had hit the younger girl in the ribcage with a hard hit from the folded-up fan.

But with that, the fourth match was over. By this time, everybody in the room had gotten used to the routine, and watched the board again. With the number of contestants down to less than half of what it started at, the potential pairings had been greatly reduced, and those remaining were already eyeing their possible foes.

Finally, it settled on two specific names. Over with the Iwa retinue, the black-haired violet-eyed girl smirked. _Finally, I can avenge your loss, Akatsuchi-kun._

The board read **Kurei Kurotsuchi vs. Uchiha Sasuke.**

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**Welp, another short chapter, but that is to be expected when I update in less than a day's time. The Temari/Sakura match wasn't very important, so that was why I did a quick summary of it from Naruto's perspective as opposed to making up an actual battle for it. Doing the Akatsuchi-Naruto match exhausted me for a bit, too.**

**Review, folks :/. Review review review! Next chapter should be done in four to five days by my estimation.**

**baka-pervert - **Part of the fun is keeping his true strength and level hidden :)**  
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	18. The Preliminaries, Part III

**Chapter 18 – 'The Preliminaries, Part III'**

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**Come on people, is it too much to ask for a review? I'm getting a couple of thousand of hits on each on the new chapters and only 18 reviews between the two of them :/**

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Even with his two-tomoed Sharingan eyes blazing, Sasuke was still hard-pressed to wage a battle against Kurotsuchi. He had expected to be able to track her movements with ease once the battle started: as she wore a tight-fitting outfit, there was nothing to hide the muscle movements of the kunoichi. What he had not expected was for her to come out right from the start, throwing senbon at him right from the start.

He had managed to jump away quickly, but the pressed attack had set the tone for the fight. The black-haired soldier of the Iwa village seemed to have an endless amount of the senbon needles, and Kurotsuchi knew better than to stay in one place while keeping her opponent moving. While Sasuke had to accelerate backwards, however, she had more natural movements in moving forward, allowing her to continue to dictate the flow of the battle.

Another spray of senbon shot out from her right hand, and then a second set was sent to pepper the spot she predicted the Uchiha heir would move to in order to dodge the first handful. Like clockwork, she had managed to goad the Sharingan-eyed menace into her trap, and she was rewarded with a delightful grunt as several senbon connected with the black-haired boy. Some of them only scraped skin or clothes due to faulty angles made worse by their flight paths, but a few had flown true. Pausing the offensive for only a half a second, Kurotsuchi treated herself to a sight of a should-be pincushion with the first few needles in already, as Sasuke had been struck mainly in the legs.

She knew she couldn't kill her opponent: that had been something Ōnoki had strictly forbidden the nine genin that had come to Konoha from doing. Uchiha Sasuke was reserved for Orochimaru. She could almost pity the boy, were it not for his membership in the loathsome Village Hidden Among Tree Leaves, having heard about Orochimaru's experiments with humans. She could, however, still cause him a deal of pain. Kurotsuchi was not a sadist, but she had been bred with a hatred for the shinobi of Fire Country, and was a stock raised to be the best of the best. She would win this match, and devastate the morale of the Leaf populace as their favoured Uchiha heir was eliminated in a preliminary match of all things.

Her little meandering and self-gloating cost the kunoichi precious seconds, however: these were ticks on the clock that Sasuke used to regroup, quickly pulling out the senbon in his legs. He had not felt any extreme sensations when pierced by the pointed projectiles: hence, he knew they had not struck any nerve clusters, and he could tear them out with abandon. Chancing a look behind his position, he saw that he had been pressed into the junction where two walls met, a corner on the far side of the room opposite the Hokage's viewing area and the regular audience chamber.

Were he not a ninja, Sasuke might have been 'trapped' by Kurotsuchi's advance. However, he _was_ a ninja, and so he channelled chakra into his feet, hopping up onto the wall. Kurotsuchi had by then snapped out of her reminiscing, and realised how much of a mistake she had made. Quickly, she tossed out another flurry of senbon. As the needles were now working against gravity, however, she had to put more force behind them, and as a result the direction of the needles suffered for it. The wall walker easily dodged them, before putting his hands together in a quick seven-seal sequence, ending on Tora. Two-tomoed Sharingan eyes blazing wildly, Sasuke could feel the build-up of heat that threatened to sear his lungs should it be kept locked away, with only a thin line of chakra coating his alveoli and lung walls protecting against the possibility of a backfired technique. With a quick cry of **"Katon: Gōkakyū no Jutsu"**, he opened his mouth to expel a red-orange fireball. Exposed to fresh oxygen, the mixture of heated gases continued to rise in temperature as it made a bee-line for the surprised Kurotsuchi.

The female half of the fight had already committed to throwing another handful of senbon, and as such found herself moving right into the path of the fire. With a superhuman amount of effort, she managed to twist her body and turn around such that she barely evaded the brunt of the attack. However, the edge of the flame tickled her left arm, and she instinctively put her right hand up at the sensation of the heat, and to press down on the reddening skin. It was not a lethal mistake, but still a big one as she had left her back exposed long enough for the Uchiha heir to slam his feet into her back, sending her reeling.

Thanks to chakra, most ninja fights would end as soon as one ninja landed a solid hit on his or her opponent. In Sasuke's case, however, he had not had the time to reinforce his blow with chakra, and so his attack on Kurotsuchi had caused the black-haired kunoichi a great deal of pain and temporarily fazed her, but nothing more than that. He had thrown his weight behind the attack, and so had to regain his balance when he finally touched the floor. Kurotsuchi used that time to shake off the pain she was feeling, and had backed away from Sasuke again, pupil-less violet eyes observing him warily, like a predator that has found its prey might not be so easy to kill. It had been her patriotic duty to advance to the finals, and she would still do it: she just had to be more careful from now on.

It was a graceful dance that followed, as she stuck to her tried-and-true method of senbon needles, while Sasuke flipped, twisted, and dodged as well as he could, all while growling. He had thought the match over once he had managed to knock her over, but all it had done was to make his opponent more cautious in her attack. Let not a wildcat be cornered lest it fight its hardest, a lesson she had picked up quickly and refused to do again.

Frustration morphed into panic, as he felt the sharp piercing of a pair of needles into his right arm. Although nothing vital had been hit or punctured yet, he was losing feeling in his arm, which could be fatal to him. And all he could do so far was to continue dodging and pulling out senbon needles. He needed something to _win_, but _what_? Neurological synapses firing at maximum frequency, he quickly tried to come up with something to win.

For her own part, Kurotsuchi had to fight off her feeling of boredom, lest she be lulled into complacency again. But now that her opponent wasn't being backed up against a wall like she had attempted before, he was nowhere as able to spring a surprise on her like the crouching tiger he had been before.

Quickly, she divided part of her attention between summoning up another handful of the thousands of senbon she held underneath her sleeves, in seals and in other hidden locations on her body, while she turned the main portion of her conscious to analysing her opponent's strengths and weaknesses. He seemed to be one-dimensional in this sort of scenario: hence, he apparently seemed to lack in defensive jutsu, particularly any sort of Earth-style ninjutsu. Nor did he seemingly possess any genjutsu at all. She had little knowledge of his taijutsu, as he had not had the chance to really attack her out of that one lone blow, but it seemed he lacked the speed to possibly outmanoeuvre her and get on her backside.

What was his strength that kept him in the fight so far? His eyes.

A small grin finally crossed her face. She had several weapons hidden across her tight-fitting uniform, but two of them would be the most useful. She stopped throwing needles all of a sudden, confusing the Uchiha heir across her, who stopped dodging and wondered what Kurotsuchi was doing. The kunoichi quickly backed away from Sasuke, until she came to the spot where she had been hit with his fireball technique.

When one used a ninjutsu, they inadvertently 'leaked' some of their own chakra from the jutsu in the process into the surroundings, which left a 'stain' of sorts. For Kurotsuchi, this was a grand opportunity, as while she was no chakra sensor, she had something that could still feed off the chakra stain and locate the owner of the chakra.

Quickly, she took out her first weapon, and threw it at the floor. The bomb exploded, giving off little energy but plenty of smoke, causing some in the audience to groan as the fighting arena was once again blocked off from sight. She then took out a scroll, opened it up, and fused her own chakra with it along with the Uchiha's leftover chakra from the fireball, before throwing it up in the air. After a second, the scroll began to glow, before hundreds of senbon needle began to fly out.

* * *

He nearly choked on the smoke created by the bomb, before his ears pricked up at what he could best call thousands of simultaneous small whistles. Eyes widening, he quickly backed up, but even then the needles seemed to be following him wherever he moved.

His Sharingan eyes allowed him to see through the smoke somewhat, but he needed to be able to better. He needed to be faster, he needed to be able to see the senbon more quickly, he needed to be able to react at a much faster speed!

Unbeknownst to him, the frantic firing of electricity through his neurons and the adrenaline pumping through his arteries had finally achieved a beneficial side-effect, as slowly a black tomoe formed in each of his eyes.

* * *

Kurotsuchi couldn't help but let a grin occupy her face. She had a similar technique to that one kunoichi of the Leaf (Tenten, she idly thought), but whereas the other girl simply threw several weapons at her opponent and attempted to make one connect, Kurotsuchi had gone for thousands of senbon needle at once, all while impairing the target's vision at the exact same time. Meanwhile, she had locked onto the target's chakra emission so she would not be similarly impaired by the smoke at the same time.

So caught up in her gloating over her self-assured victory she was, the violet-eyed ninja had no time to react as Sasuke blew through the smoke, delivering a powerful blow with his knee to her stomach. She exhaled sharply, bending over from the loss of air in her lungs, exposing her to a quick punch that sent her sailing onto the ground, skipping back a metre after impact, before her head took a hard knock against an uprooted piece of stone.

Groaning, she looked up at her opponent, as she heard gasps from the sharper-eyed in the audience. She quickly saw why they had gasped: in her opponent's eyes were **three**-tomed Sharingan eyes.

Kurotsuchi considered her options, looking at the menacing Sharingan-eyed genin walking towards her. Picking up her right hand, she turned the palm towards her, and opened it with what strength she had left. A hole opened up in the middle of her palm, revealing a 'mouth' of sorts, as a 'tongue' poked out, making for a scene that would have been disturbing were she not used to it by now. Looking back at her opponent, she decided against it. It would not do well for anybody in Konoha to know what she could truly do ahead of time. Her body was also aching heavily, with a possible concussion, and it would impair her if she were to try to fight further.

She opened her mouth, and the second it took for her to enunciate those three wretched words felt like an eternity. "Proctor, I forfeit."

* * *

Watching the fight between Sasuke and Kurotsuchi had been rather entertaining, though now Naruto would have a few words to write to a certain blond-haired member of the Akatuski on his little sister's progress over the years. It was nice to see at least one of his teammates had made it to the finals, even if he still merely considered them 'teammates' and not 'friends'.

An annoying burst of wild noise cut in from the background, and so the cerulean-eyed shinobi craned his head to find the shinobi from earlier who wore green spandex, Rock Lee, hugging his sensei and declaring something about not wanting to fight next. Looking back to the arena, he noted wryly that the screen now read **Rock Lee vs. Sabaku no Kankuro.** Changing his focus back to the student-sensei duo, he dropped his jaw at the display they were exhibiting, as Rock Lee declared with tears streaming down his cheek that his attempt at reverse psychology had worked, and he was now fighting next.

_Unbelievable_, was all Naruto had to think. _Are Konoha's ninjas really so undisciplined that they do stuff like this?_

Of course, the fight was rather disappointing. He had assumed Lee to be a taijutsu user, and as he eavesdropped in on a conversation between Sakura and Lee's sensei, Maito Gai, he was proven right. However, Lee was also far too reckless. Right when the battle had started, he had moved in at a breakneck speed and attempted to knock out Kankuro with a kick right underneath the diaphragm. Unfortunately for the taijutsu user, the Kankuro he had attacked was a lifelike puppet of the real Kankuro, one that had released a green gas. Lee was unable to stop himself from breathing it in, having just come in with a heavy kick, and within moments fell asleep.

Clearly neither student nor sensei really understood that 'honour' would get them nowhere in the shinobi world. One could not straight-up attack an opponent, and in Lee's case he had easily fallen to a sleeping gas hidden in a puppet compartment.

But that left three participants to fight in the chunin exam preliminaries, and so everyone was eager to see which two were to fight the final battle. It was with great anticipation that the screen finally displayed **Hamakaze Tatsumaki vs. Yogore Shirotsuchi.**

**

* * *

**

With the Suna procession, Yattoko was quietly whispering to his female teammate as soon as he saw the names on the board. "Be careful, Tatsu-chan," He warned the blonde, who had been toting her fan around. "I get the feeling your opponent is stronger than what the other two Iwa genin have shown so far."

His companion nodded back, emerald green eyes open wide. "I will try my best, Yatto-kun." She looked at the team's other member out of the corner of her eye. "Not counting Kojote's match, which was against Gaara anyways, every Suna genin here has made it into the finals. I won't let that streak be snapped." Tossing her long, wavy hair around, she winked at her teammate, before flipping her fan open. Quickly hopping onto the fan, she sailed down to the floor, her battle kimono floating slightly in the currents, going to where her opponent waited.

Yattoko just palmed his face. "You say that, and then you go and show what your specialty is right before the fight even begins."

* * *

Green eyes met coal-black as the last remaining member of the Iwa and Suna processions carefully analysed his or her opponent. Although Akasuna no Sasori had killed hundreds of Iwagakure shinobi in the last Great Shinobi War, neither of the villages held much hatred for each other: no, Iwa reserved their vitriol for one man, and that had been Namikaze Minato, the Yondaime Hokage. With the Yellow Flash's death at the paws of the Kyuubi, the seething hatred had been redirected onto the village that he hailed from. While Tatsumaki and Shirotsuchi would fight, there would be little cold rage behind their actions.

Shirotsuchi's bleached blond hair contrasted sharply with his eyes, and he dominated all the chunin hopefuls in height, reaching over five and a half feet. Tatsumaki could not help but feel slightly intimidated, as she was petite in comparison to him. It did not help, either, that his gaunt features made his appearance even more imposing.

Shirotsuchi spoke, and to her wonder his voice was fairly smooth, not rough at all like she had expected. "May the best one of us win."

Tatsumaki merely nodded. Raika, seeing this as the initiative to start the fight, backed away. After a quick standard "Fighter's ready?", he swung his hand down and shouted "Begin!"

The kunoichi from Suna began the fight, swinging her folded-up fan in a left-to-right motion, quickly shouting out "**Futon: Kaze no Yaiba **(Blade of Wind)**!**" Although her fan was nowhere near as efficient at cutting with the wind as channelling with the fingers, which Baki no Yaiba could do, it was still a useful medium for sending a single horizontal cut through the air.

Shirotsuchi reacted quickly, dropping low onto the ground before quickly putting his hands together in a seven-seal sequence, stringing his words together quickly before he could be decapitated, "**Doton: Doryūheki **(Mud Wall)!" The efforts of earlier battles had broken up the floor significantly, allowing him to use the soft earth below as well as the stone fragments to create an earthy wall in front of him.

The wall rose up in time to stop Tatsumaki's jutsu, though he quickly put his hands up to his ears as asharp shriek of a sharp cut against solid stone was emitted. Tatsumaki, being further away from the stone wall, had no compunctions about needing to protect her ears, and quickly began to go through another sequence of hand seals. She broke off from performing her jutsu as she saw a glint from behind the wall, and managed to swing her fan in front of her in time, sending a kunai ricocheting off the wall of stone and mud.

With a sharp eye, she noted the dust that suddenly had begun to be kicked up from the ground, and pondered about it for a half second, before deciding that she could not let her opponent do whatever he was planning with bringing all the dust particles up into the air. Finally unfolding her battle fan, she swung the open weapon forward, creating a wind current in the room. With the power of her wind-natured chakra behind her, the debris particles in the air were blown about, rendering whatever Shirotsuchi had had planned unable to be completed.

It was only a split second warning of a slight tremble underneath her feet that saved her from an earthen wall that quickly pounced above ground. Only a back-flip prevented her from being knocked out by the sheer force of the sprouting structure of mud and stone, and the adrenaline quickly pumped through her body at how close she had come to losing. Idly, she added her opponent's ability to summon up a **Doryūheki **from long range as one of his talents.

She would have to be careful if he was this good at Earth manipulation. Tatsumaki had some idea of what strong Earth users could do, such as being able to bury oneself under the ground, and in some rare cases, even move through the ground.

That brought a rather chilling observation, that she was vulnerable anywhere on the ground, particularly with the mouldable shape of the heavily damaged floor. There was only one place she was safe. Turning around, she quickly moved away from her current position, and ran up the wall. Reaching over twenty metres above the ground, Tatsumaki jumped off, in the same motion snapping open her battle fan fully and gliding over the battle arena, looking for her opponent. She grimaced when she couldn't spot Shirotsuchi from up high.

So, he had gone underground, had he?

Well, he had the advantage in that case. She was a female, so her chakra pool was nowhere as deep as it could be had she been born a male, and she needed to use chakra to keep her fan sinking at a very slow rate. Additionally, Tatsumaki was currently fighting _indoors_, meaning she had to work doubly hard with the lack of a natural wind flow. She couldn't keep this up forever: she would need to land sometime, and when that happened, she would be vulnerable again to attack.

It was looking like she had been put in a bad match-up here. While Wind and Earth were not diametrically opposite elements in the cycle of nature, given what Shirotsuchi had already shown, she was at the disadvantage in this fight. So long as she was in the air, she had time to think about what to do, but once she touched down she would have to move instantly.

For one, Tatsumaki couldn't use her fan anymore, as those annoying walls of earth could block both cutting winds and blowing winds. She would have to use jutsu without her fan as an intermediary, simply because the battle weapon's weight would be a detriment to her, both in carrying it around and in preparation time to hit her opponent. Using her hands or mouth to send a ball of concentrated winds was less powerful than with her fan, but it also didn't cost the precious seconds that the Suna kunoichi's opponent might exploit.

Right. So she would lower herself, ditch her fan, and move around and dodge whatever attacks her opponent might hit her with from underground. If she could get him to resurface, then there was potential for her to hit him point-blank with something.

She used her remaining seconds in the air eying the once smooth-stone battlefield, now damaged with the ground dug up in places, a couple of fissures, large pieces of rock lying all over the place, and two mud-and-stone walls. To Tatsumaki's disappointment, she could not even identify a spot where he might have submerged into the ground below. This would have been a really good time for her to suddenly unlock some sort of chakra sensor skill (Privately, Tatsumaki decided to lay off the fantasising, because unlike the Uchiha who already had the Sharingan eyes but lacked the maximum tomoes, she had no 'family background with a super secret kekkei genkai', at least not to her knowledge)!

Sighing, Tatsumaki finally let her fan sink at a quicker pace than it had before, gliding down, before she stood up, and put one foot on top of the mud wall that Shirotsuchi had initially put up to block her **Kaze no Yaiba** from earlier. Satisfied that it was solid enough, the wind mistress put her other foot down, standing on top of the wall. At least up here, she felt marginally safer than on the ground. Taking her fan, she tossed it aside, hoping her opponent would not actually try to break her precious fan after she had temporarily discarded it.

This time, however, the blonde had no tremor to alert her to Shirotsuchi's next move, as she was immediately thrown off balance when the wall she was on 'shifted'. Outside of her observation range, a hole had opened up in the ground near the wall, and all the debris in the room was being sucked towards it as the ground began to decline towards the sinkhole. Among that debris included one Tatsumaki, who had been hit by a flying rock when she fell, and was unable to stop herself from being sunk into the hole.

Once she had gone underground, the rubble stopped, and fell to the ground, before another hole opened up. A nearly-pristine Shirotsuchi emerged, only slightly the worse for wear. The audience above quieted down, waiting to see if Tatsumaki would somehow emerge and the fight continue. A few minutes passed, before Shirotsuchi walked to the sinkhole near the centre of the room. Reaching in deep, he pulled out the blonde kunoichi by the hem of her battle kimono. It was plain for all to see that she was unconscious.

"Like an antlion," the bleach-haired boy said lightly, before turning his head to Raika. "Proctor, the match?"

The elder Uchiha in the room nodded. "Right. As Hamakaze Tatsumaki is unable to compete any further, Yogore Shirotsuchi is the victor in this battle." He grimaced as he realised just how much work it would be for whoever had to repair the floor in this room. Fissures, cracks, two earth walls, and now a sinkhole. It would probably be some of the newly-graduated genin who would have to do it after an exercise of making it through Training Ground 44.

"Well then," Raika said, already putting the last match behind him, "That leaves Hyuga Neji of Konohagakure as the final participant, who will receive an automatic bye." The young genin in question merely nodded, forgoing any verbal acknowledgement. He had seen some of the monsters in the exam so far, and was just glad that he managed to evade being chosen. It would not be good if he had to show off his trump card now and let somebody expect it a month later.

* * *

Five minutes later saw the eight genin who had made it to the finals standing on the arena floor, facing Sarutobi. The Sandaime Hokage stood up, cleared his throat, and then began to speak. "You eight here today have made it to the finals, which are due to take place in a month in Konoha's stadium. The finals will be similar to the preliminaries, but it will not end after one round: instead, it will run as an elimination tournament, up until one genin survives." Clearing his throat again, he began anew. "Chunin will be decided not through who wins and who loses, but through the tactics and strategy that one shows during a fight. As a result, somebody who forfeits their first match may become a chunin, while the tournament winner could remain a genin."

Raika moved back into the eight genins' range of vision, having momentarily disappeared, this time with a box in his hand. "Genins, please come and pick a ball out of this box. This will help us determine who your opponent will be." Slowly, the procession moved forward, each picking that person's own individual ball.

"Two," Neji said, holding up his number for all to verify. While calm on the inside, he was brimming with energy. He would be able to make an impact by having the first match, when the audience would be fresh and wide awake to watching a fight.

"Three," said the black-and-red-clothed Naruto, his face dirty and his shaggy hair dried out with sweat from his own battle.

"Five," intoned the pale-skinned Gaara, indifferent to his positioning.

"One," this came from Yattoko, a hint of anticipation present at the thought of being able to fight a Hyuga, who might be the perfect antithesis to his own techniques.

"Eight," said Sasuke, annoyed at having to fight last when the finals came. That meant if he won, only one match would separate his first and his second match, while the victors of the first three matches would have at least a two-match cushion to regain energy.

"Six," said Temari, glancing over at her brother. She wasn't afraid of him personally, so she would give it her all in the fight. She doubted she would actually beat him, but if the two could choreograph a good enough match, then spectators at the finals might feel more inclined to hire Suna in the future for various services.

"Four," said Kankuro. The Kazekage had debriefed his team slightly on Naruto, informing the Sabaku trio that Naruto existed as a spy, so Kankuro would have to be sure not to blow the Konoha genin's cover.

"That leaves me with the lucky number seven, then," Shirosuna said with a grim grin as he picked the last ball out of the box. He had had to show off far too much in his battle with Tatsumaki: the only saving grace that he had was that he still had the advantage in the finals with the soft earth present at Konoha's stadium.

"Very well then!" Raika exclaimed, having drawn up the matches. "The first match will be **Awai Yattoko vs. Hyuga Neji**. The second match-up will comprise of **Uzumaki Naruto vs. Sabaku no Kankuro.** The third fight shall be **Sabaku no Gaara vs. Sabaku no Temari**, and the final battle will be **Yogore Shirotsuchi vs. Uchiha Sasuke**." Looking behind the genin at the team senseis, he finally ended the convention with a flat "Dismissed." He watched as the fifteen genin went to talk to their senseis, figuring out what they should do next.

* * *

Sarutobi stroked his beard, pondering over the events that had just happened in the last few hours. Maito Gai's team had been a bust, and while he could forgive the performance of Tenten against an obviously superior opponent, the other match-up was nowhere near what could be called 'lopsided'. Gai still understood little that honour meant nothing in the shinobi world. Up until now, Sarutobi had tolerated it because the man was a beast at taijustu, but passing the attitude on to his genin was rather sloppy.

It had been rather intriguing to see both Uchiha Sasuke and Uzumaki Naruto pass, and both fighting against Iwa genin. The former he had been expecting to win, but the latter had been a bit of a toss-up. He had briefly had a panic when Jiraiya had reported to him about the Hakubo organisation, as their plan to keep Naruto's skills repressed was then broken. He had assigned Yamato to teach Team 7 in hopes to quickly reverse the damage, but seeing how far Naruto had come along, he was impressed. Yamato had received prior instructions on what each of his students were to do should they win or lose: with Naruto's win, he would be coaxed into finding Sarutobi's own student and learning from him. Jiraiya would take over reaffirming Naruto's loyalty to the village from there.

Of course, with the last match, Iwa had a ticket to bring some of its own shinobi into the village. That was a bit of a problem. He had so been hoping for the Hamakaze girl to win, for a variety of reasons, but preventing Iwa from publicly bringing in powerful figures was the main one.

The monkey summoner sighed, and was about to stand up, when his motion was cut short by an ANBU teleporting in with a usage of the **Shunshin**. He was unworried: he had long ago memorised the chakra signatures of ANBU Squad 12. The squad was his finest, with such a reputation that it had operated for over fifteen years without a single change in the membership, and it was also notorious for being his own personal guard squad. "What is it, Taka?" This member in particular was the squad's scouting expert.

"Hokage-sama," Taka bowed briefly to his leader, before beginning his report. "We swept through the Forest of Death as you ordered. There's something you should know..."

Ah, the fates of all the teams that had not made it in. Were they dead, or merely lost and unable to make it to the tower on time with two scrolls? Something seemed off in Taka's tone, so there must be something worrisome going on. Sarutobi finally stood up, working out the kinks that had developed in his body while sitting down. "Let us speak of this in my office." Taka nodded, and the two warped warped away, the air shimmering behind them.

* * *

**I always felt the whole idea of Sasuke being able to suddenly dodge all the senbon just from having a one-tomoe and two-tomoed Sharingan was a bit of crock, particularly when he still couldn't read Haku's movements in canon because he was in the mirrors. So Sasuke has trouble dodging senbon here until he gets three-tomoed Sharingan.**

**Kankuro is seriously underrated in most fanfictions from what I've seen (and is often made into a butt monkey). I can see any sort of poison being dangerous to a user of the **Eight Gates** technique simply because using the Eight Gates spreads nutrients out to the individual cells much faster, and I don't think the body is focused to filtering out poisons at that point in time. Lee is pretty much a straight-up attacker so just poison him (or in this story's case, hit him with sleeping gas) and unless he can get away before the poison affects him it's a big blow. Yeah, it was a short fight, but that was sort of the point.**

**That said, I formulated up a minor plot twist over the last couple of weeks that would fit perfectly into this story, but small amounts of text might be edited from previous chapters. Key word is might, depending on how I work out the plot twist.**

**Work is progressing on a Rise of a Kitsune rewrite, slowly. Up to about 7k words, I'd like to get a lot pre-written before I publish it though.  
**


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